Carrier route record
ASSAN→IAD
Alaska Airlines · San Diego to Washington
- Flights
- 361
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 26%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on SAN to IAD earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 361 flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Alaska's SAN to IAD record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 90 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 357 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.83%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
87.6%
Every carrier on SAN to IAD, 1,402 flights
These figures cover 361 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 14 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Alaska against every carrier on SAN to IAD
Alaska flew 361 of the 1,402 flights on SAN to IAD, about 26% of it. Its 86.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 87.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 88.0% to Alaska at 86.3%.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,041 | 88.0% | 81 min | 0.77% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines (this page)thin sample | 361 | 86.3% | 57 min | 0.83% | A+ |
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Departure window
When Alaska runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 361 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Alaska's SAN to IAD record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 86.3% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
Alaska on SAN to IAD through the year
July is the worst month at 61.3% on time, 36 points below May, the best at 96.8%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. March was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 92.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.6%, a spread of 15 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Alaska on SAN to IAD runs when it is late
Alaska on SAN to IAD often beats the schedule: 169 of 357 completed flights, 47%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 49 late arrivals split 20 under half an hour, 15 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 14 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early169 flights47.3%
- Within 15 min139 flights38.9%
- 15–29 min late20 flights5.6%
- 30–59 min late15 flights4.2%
- 1–2 hours late9 flights2.5%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 357 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
17 of 58 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 29% of them. 8 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Alaska on SAN to IAD
The latest arrival of the period was on 19 July 2026, 7 hours 7 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in July 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 19 July 2026 | 7 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 July 2026 | 2 hours 19 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 22 July 2026 | 2 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 March 2026 | 2 hours 15 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 October 2025 | 2 hours | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Alaska runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 2,769 reported delay minutes.
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.2% on time here. The split is drawn from 2,769 reported delay minutes.
No single cause dominates. late-arriving aircraft at 33%, carrier at 33% and national airspace system at 23% split the 2,769 reported delay minutes between them. An even spread like this usually means the operation is running close to its designed capacity with no one obvious weak point, and it is the hardest pattern for a traveller to route around.
Cancellations are rare at 0.83%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 2,253 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.4% on time across 361 flights, 13 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 361 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Alaska on SAN to IAD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 361 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 86.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 357 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SAN to IAD, every carrier
- Alaska on IAD to SAN, the return leg
- United Airlines on SAN to IAD88.0%
- Alaska Airlines network-wide record
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.