Route profile
DFW→SAN
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Dallas–Fort Worth to San Diego, 1,171 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 3% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 11,019 flights. How this is calculated
DFW → SAN arrives on time 66.3% of the time; the return trip, SAN → DFW, arrives on time 76.2% of the time, a 10.0-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
DFW → SAN spends 26.1 minutes on the ground on a 1,171-mile trip: 19.0 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DFW and 7.1 minutes from touchdown to gate at SAN.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why DFW → SAN flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
DFW → SAN cancelled 238 of 11,019 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 46. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 84.9% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 55 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 238 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
202 cancellations, 84.9% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
32 cancellations, 13.4% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
4 cancellations, 1.7% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
238 coded cancellations were recorded on DFW → SAN; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
68 min late
against a median of 2 min late
DFW → SAN has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 2 min late, but the worst tenth are 67 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 11,019 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at SAN after arriving from DFW.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 52% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 33% | Likely to miss |
| 60 min | 23% | High risk |
| 90 min | 12% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 6.9% | Some risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 2.16% of the time and diverts 0.39% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 10,738 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 68 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 11,019 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
DFW → SAN flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 84.0% of the time, against 53.8% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 30.2 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 6 AM: too few flights to score
- 7 AM: 84.4% on time from 1,167 flights
- 8 AM: 82.9% on time from 806 flights
- 9 AM: 72.1% on time from 381 flights
- 10 AM: 75.4% on time from 227 flights
- 11 AM: 68.1% on time from 1,054 flights
- 12 PM: 76.0% on time from 425 flights
- 1 PM: 62.7% on time from 778 flights
- 2 PM: 66.6% on time from 1,210 flights
- 3 PM: too few flights to score
- 4 PM: 59.3% on time from 569 flights
- 5 PM: 66.5% on time from 736 flights
- 6 PM: 52.0% on time from 224 flights
- 7 PM: 58.3% on time from 1,054 flights
- 8 PM: 49.9% on time from 759 flights
- 9 PM: 48.2% on time from 491 flights
- 10 PM: 57.6% on time from 888 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why DFW → SAN runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DFW → SAN. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on DFW → SAN, at 47.2%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 84.0% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 53.8%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
The harder-hit end is the one the flight leaves from, where a cancellation keeps it from departing at all. Bad weather cancels 7.0 times the normal rate at DFW against 3.5 times at SAN. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: DFW 10.4% against 1.5%, SAN 3.5% against 1.0%. Flights that did leave DFW in bad weather arrived on time 56.4% of the time, against 74.4% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | DFW | SAN |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 10.4% | 3.5% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.5% | 1.0% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 56.4% | 66.7% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 74.4% | 78.4% |
| Departures in bad weather | 72,822 | 19,707 |
Alaska Airlines (4.9% cancelled against 10.0% for the other carriers at DFW) and Frontier Airlines (5.9% cancelled against 10.5% for the other carriers at DFW) cancelled fewer departures from DFW in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly worse.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at DFW
All departures from DFW| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 533 | 4.9%below the others | 10.0% |
| Frontier Airlines | 2,192 | 5.9%below the others | 10.5% |
| American Airlines | 38,491 | 10.0%about level | 10.9% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from DFW and SAN, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from DFW on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: DFW (airlines), SAN, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 9,764 | 66.0% | 2.20% | 2 min | 11.7% |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,053 | 70.6% | 2.09% | -2 min | 13.1% |
| Alaska Airlines | 202 | 56.7% | 0.50% | 7 min | 13.4% |
American Airlines flew 88.6% of the 11,019 flights listed. American Airlines cancelled 2.20% of its flights here against 0.50% for Alaska Airlines.
Frontier Airlines arrived on time 13.9 percentage points more often than Alaska Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA2568 American Airlines | 10:59 PM | 826 | 57.5% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Monday the least, a gap of 7.3 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 68.3%
- Feb: 76.1%
- Mar: 72.5%
- Apr: 68.5%
- May: 59.4%
- Jun: 55.2%
- Jul: 56.4%
- Aug: 59.4%
- Sep: 68.6%
- Oct: 73.1%
- Nov: 74.3%
- Dec: 73.0%
June is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 20.9 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 64.0% from 303 flights
- August 2023: 64.1% from 314 flights
- September 2023: 70.1% from 275 flights
- October 2023: 76.8% from 311 flights
- November 2023: 79.8% from 298 flights
- December 2023: 81.2% from 287 flights
- January 2024: 66.4% from 287 flights
- February 2024: 79.6% from 284 flights
- March 2024: 67.5% from 338 flights
- April 2024: 71.0% from 322 flights
- May 2024: 54.7% from 320 flights
- June 2024: 65.0% from 307 flights
- July 2024: 52.9% from 301 flights
- August 2024: 62.9% from 289 flights
- September 2024: 69.8% from 258 flights
- October 2024: 76.3% from 281 flights
- November 2024: 75.9% from 265 flights
- December 2024: 65.5% from 276 flights
- January 2025: 69.8% from 243 flights
- February 2025: 73.6% from 235 flights
- March 2025: 73.8% from 303 flights
- April 2025: 66.5% from 291 flights
- May 2025: 60.4% from 300 flights
- June 2025: 54.2% from 326 flights
- July 2025: 52.6% from 336 flights
- August 2025: 50.7% from 296 flights
- September 2025: 65.9% from 265 flights
- October 2025: 66.0% from 297 flights
- November 2025: 66.1% from 261 flights
- December 2025: 71.6% from 281 flights
- January 2026: 69.0% from 274 flights
- February 2026: 74.6% from 248 flights
- March 2026: 76.9% from 292 flights
- April 2026: 67.6% from 303 flights
- May 2026: 62.5% from 374 flights
- June 2026: 48.0% from 381 flights
- July 2026: 56.5% from 397 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 63.7% against 66.2% in the 12 months before — declining by 2.5 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 11,019 DFW → SAN flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed