Carrier route record

ASSFO→AUS

Alaska Airlines · San Francisco to Austin

Flights: 343
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 12%
Carriers: 5

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.

Alaska on SFO to AUS earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 343 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,653 at 82.7% on time.

Set against the rest of the country, Alaska's SFO to AUS record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 73 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

84.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 338 completed flights

Avg delay

59 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.87%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

74.8%

Every carrier on SFO to AUS, 2,792 flights

These figures cover 343 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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

Alaska against every carrier on SFO to AUS

Alaska flew 343 of the 2,792 flights on SFO to AUS, about 12% of it. Its 84.9% on time is 10 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 100.0% to Southwest at 44.8%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 82.7% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 61.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 444 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on SFO to AUS
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	8	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
Alaska Airlines (this page)thin sample	343	84.9%	59 min	0.87%	B+
United Airlines	1,653	82.7%	52 min	0.73%	B+
Delta Air Lines	444	61.0%	73 min	1.58%	D
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	344	44.8%	64 min	0.00%	F+

The spread between United and Delta is 22 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 22 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

Departure window

When Alaska runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 34 points, against 22 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am190 flights94.1%
8am–11am—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm49 flights59.6%
5pm–8pm104 flights79.6%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.1% of the time, against 59.6% for the afternoon window. That is 34 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 190 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Alaska on SFO to AUS through the year

Jul–Sep 2025165 flights84.5%
Oct–Dec 2025166 flights87.3%
Jan–Mar 202612 flights—

Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 84.9% on time across 343 flights.

Split by quarter, Alaska on SFO to AUS logged 165 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 166 flights in Oct–Dec 2025 and 12 flights in Jan–Mar 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 84.9% annual figure is the one to use.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 92.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.5%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

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 2,984 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
37%
National Airspace System
34%
Late-arriving aircraft
28%

The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,118 of the 2,984 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,984 reported delay minutes.

34% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,029 minutes out of 2,984, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations are rare at 0.87%, below the national 1.81% 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

5.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. 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 last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 1,504 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 78.8% on time across 344 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 343 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 SFO to AUS

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 343 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 84.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 338 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures