Route reliability record
SAN→LAS
San Diego to Las Vegas
- Flights
- 6,129
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 258 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.4%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 6,129 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,653 at 77.2% on time.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 77.2% on time across 1,653 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,049 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.24%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
SkyWest
77.2% on time across 1,653 flights
These figures cover 6,129 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SAN to LAS
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 77.2% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 63.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 403 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 348 | 83.6% | 63 min | 1.72% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,653 | 77.2% | 68 min | 1.27% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 3,725 | 75.4% | 53 min | 1.05% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 403 | 63.3% | 106 min | 2.48% | D |
The spread between SkyWest and Frontier is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 28 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am669 flights95.3%
- 8am–11am1,277 flights85.4%
- 11am–2pm1,089 flights71.6%
- 2pm–5pm1,114 flights68.3%
- 5pm–8pm1,280 flights69.3%
- 8pm–5am700 flights67.3%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.3% of the time, against 67.3% for the overnight window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
Delays peak in May, when the on-time rate falls to 67.9%. January is the strongest month at 83.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 15 points.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 66.4%. 18 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 92,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%National Airspace System
- 22%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 92,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 95.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.24% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.07%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 258 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.7% on time across 6,131 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 6,129 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 83.0% on time and May 67.9%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else.
Common questions
SAN to LAS questions
How often is SAN to LAS delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.5% of the 6,129 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SAN to LAS?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 77.2% on time across 1,653 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 63.3%, a gap of 14 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SAN to LAS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 67.3%, 28 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are May delays on SAN to LAS?
May is the weakest month at 67.9% on time, compared with 83.0% in January. Across the year that is 15 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- LAS to SAN — the return legseparate record
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on-time record83.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record77.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. SAN to LAS and LAS to SAN are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.