SAN → DFW Flight Reliability

Right now

Origin · SANNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 08:51 UTC

San Diego airport profile →

Destination · DFWNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 08:53 UTC

Dallas–Fort Worth airport profile →

Route reliability

July 2023 – July 2026

Route Reliability Score

51/ 100Fair

Better than 16% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)

Calculated from 11,013 flights. How this is calculated

On-time arrivals

76.2%

8,168 of 10,715

Cancellation rate

2.18%

240 cancelled

Median arrival delay

-5 min

Average 14.0 min

Severe delays

9.5%

60+ minutes late

Delay when late

91 min

Average, when 15+ min late

Flights analyzed

11,013

3 carriers

SAN → DFW arrives on time 76.2% of the time; the return trip, DFW → SAN, arrives on time 66.3% of the time, a 10.0-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.

SAN → DFW spends 35.7 minutes on the ground on a 1,171-mile trip: 22.4 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at SAN and 13.2 minutes from touchdown to gate at DFW.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026

What stands out

Every day of the week performs about the same on this route, steadier than 91% of 4,467 comparable routes.

78.8% on time on the best day (Wednesday) against 74.0% on the worst (Friday).

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 4,467 in the comparison.

Why SAN → DFW flights are cancelled

July 2023 – July 2026

SAN → DFW cancelled 240 of 11,013 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 46. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 83.3% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 55 scheduled flights.

Share of cancellations

Weather83.3%

Airline14.6%

Air traffic2.1%

Security0.0%

Of 240 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.

What each reason means

Extreme weather1 in 55

Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.

200 cancellations, 83.3% of the total.

The airline1 in 315

Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.

35 cancellations, 14.6% of the total.

The air traffic system1 in 2,203

Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.

5 cancellations, 2.1% of the total.

Security—

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.

240 coded cancellations were recorded on SAN → DFW; the section appears from 50.

When it goes wrong

July 2023 – July 2026

One arrival in ten is worse than

56 min late

against a median of 5 min early

Arrived an hour or more late9.5%

Typical delay when late91 min

Cancelled2.18%

Landed somewhere else0.53%

SAN → DFW has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 5 min early, but the worst tenth are 61 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 11,013 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.

Will your connection be tight enough?

Layovers at DFW after arriving from SAN.

Connection buffer and chance of missing by layover length, SAN → DFW arrivals
Connection time	Chance of missing	Reads as
30 min	39%	Likely to miss
45 min	23%	High risk
60 min	16%	High risk
90 min	9.4%	Some risk
120 min	6.3%	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 2.18% of the time and diverts 0.53% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.

Chance of missing is the share of 10,715 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 56 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 11,013 operations.

Any other layover length: connection checker.

Best time to fly

SAN → DFW flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 84.3% of the time, against 54.9% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 29.4 percentage points.

By day and hour

On-time arrival rate for each weekday and scheduled departure hour, in local time at the departure airport (SAN).

Hour of departure matters more than day of the week: hourly averages sit a typical 7.7 points from the route-wide rate, weekday averages 1.9 points.

On-time arrival rate for SAN to DFW by weekday and scheduled departure hour, local time. Each button reads out one slot.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
6 AM–7 AM
7 AM–8 AM
8 AM–9 AM
9 AM–10 AM
10 AM–11 AM
11 AM–12 PM
12 PM–1 PM
1 PM–2 PM
2 PM–3 PM
3 PM–4 PM
4 PM–5 PM

On-time rate, % · stronger color, fewer on time

60–64
65–69
70–74
75–79
80–84
85–89
90–94

Fewer than 120 flights, not scored

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · On time is arrival within 15 minutes of schedule. Cells round to whole percentages; the table shows one decimal.

No slot is named best or worst: too few reach 500 flights. Departures after 5 PM (400 flights) are not drawn: no slot in those hours has enough flights to score.

View as tableHide table

On-time arrival rate (%) with flights beneath, by scheduled departure hour and weekday for SAN to DFW. A dash means fewer than 120 flights, which are not scored.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
6 AM–7 AM	88.6% on time208 flights	86.5% on time173 flights	91.3% on time176 flights	88.1% on time206 flights	85.9% on time203 flights	90.4% on time187 flights	90.5% on time202 flights
7 AM–8 AM	79.8% on time173 flights	89.5% on time154 flights	87.8% on time150 flights	88.9% on time168 flights	82.7% on time171 flights	85.6% on time157 flights	87.5% on time167 flights
8 AM–9 AM	75.2% on time169 flights	76.2% on time170 flights	87.1% on time173 flights	76.7% on time162 flights	71.3% on time176 flights	76.0% on time176 flights	82.8% on time161 flights
9 AM–10 AM	82.9% on time143 flights	79.5% on time148 flights	79.9% on time143 flights	78.1% on time153 flights	80.9% on time140 flights	83.1% on time131 flights	77.3% on time157 flights
10 AM–11 AM	72.0% on time131 flights	73.2% on time130 flights	74.4% on time127 flights	76.3% on time139 flights	69.0% on time131 flights	75.8% on time134 flights	69.8% on time142 flights
11 AM–12 PM	77 flights, too few to score	78 flights, too few to score	81 flights, too few to score	83 flights, too few to score	85 flights, too few to score	80 flights, too few to score	78 flights, too few to score
12 PM–1 PM	75.8% on time168 flights	75.0% on time171 flights	76.3% on time171 flights	75.0% on time162 flights	72.5% on time174 flights	78.9% on time163 flights	73.1% on time172 flights
1 PM–2 PM	45 flights, too few to score	48 flights, too few to score	48 flights, too few to score	42 flights, too few to score	41 flights, too few to score	47 flights, too few to score	35 flights, too few to score
2 PM–3 PM	69.6% on time160 flights	74.7% on time149 flights	72.8% on time149 flights	70.6% on time165 flights	70.1% on time156 flights	75.6% on time165 flights	70.3% on time170 flights
3 PM–4 PM	59.5% on time129 flights	113 flights, too few to score	70.1% on time122 flights	61.5% on time134 flights	66.7% on time139 flights	118 flights, too few to score	63.2% on time139 flights
4 PM–5 PM	69.5% on time148 flights	96 flights, too few to score	116 flights, too few to score	65.5% on time153 flights	68.9% on time138 flights	110 flights, too few to score	61.9% on time164 flights

By departure window

5–9 AM84.3%

9 AM–12 PM75.9%

12–3 PM73.2%

3–6 PM68.0%

6–9 PM54.9%

By departure hour

12 AM

3 AM

6 AM

9 AM

12 PM

3 PM

6 PM

9 PM

Why SAN → DFW runs late

July 2023 – July 2026

Late-arriving aircraft50.7%

the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late

The airline27.6%

crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control

Air traffic control13.0%

airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control

Weather8.6%

weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically

Security0.1%

screening or terminal security incidents

Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for SAN → DFW. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.

Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on SAN → DFW, at 50.7%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 84.3% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 54.9%.

How this route holds up in bad weather

July 2023 – July 2026

The harder-hit end is DFW, where the flight lands. Its figure counts departures from DFW, so it says more about how that airport copes than about this route. Bad weather cancels 7.0 times the normal rate at DFW against 3.5 times at SAN. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: SAN 3.5% against 1.0%, DFW 10.4% against 1.5%. 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 SAN and DFW in hours of bad weather and in normal hours
Departures from	SAN	DFW
Cancelled in bad weather	3.5%	10.4%
Cancelled in normal hours	1.0%	1.5%
Arrived on time, bad weather	66.7%	56.4%
Arrived on time, normal hours	78.4%	74.4%
Departures in bad weather	19,707	72,822

Of the carriers on this route, American Airlines (1.7% cancelled against 3.7% for the other carriers at SAN) cancelled the fewest departures from SAN in bad weather and Frontier Airlines (5.1% cancelled against 3.4% for the other carriers at SAN) the most.

This route’s airlines in bad weather at SAN

All departures from SAN

Cancellation rates in bad weather at SAN for the airlines that fly SAN to DFW, against the other carriers at SAN in the same months
Airline	Bad-weather departures	Cancelled	Other carriers
American Airlines	2,200	1.7%below the others	3.7%
Alaska Airlines	2,278	3.2%about level	3.6%
Frontier Airlines	580	5.1%above the others	3.4%

These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from SAN and DFW, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from SAN on every route.

Weather source and limits. In full: SAN (airlines), DFW, 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.

Airlines on this route
Carrier	Flights	On time	Cancelled	Median delay	Severe
American Airlines	9,759	77.1%	2.24%	-6 min	9.4%
Frontier Airlines	1,052	67.5%	1.90%	0 min	11.9%
Alaska Airlines	202	78.7%	0.50%	-5 min	5.6%

American Airlines flew 88.6% of the 11,013 flights listed. American Airlines cancelled 2.24% of its flights here against 0.50% for Alaska Airlines.

Alaska Airlines arrived on time 11.2 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.

Flights on this route

Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.

Flights on this route
Flight	Scheduled	Operations	On time
AA2535 American Airlines	6:15 AM	1,109	86.2%
AA1055 American Airlines	6:15 AM	814	86.8%

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

Mon74.1%

Tue78.0%

Wed78.8%

Thu75.6%

Fri74.0%

Sat78.3%

Sun75.2%

Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 4.8 percentage points.

By month

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

June is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 15.1 percentage points.

Reliability over time

July 2023 – July 2026

24

25

26

Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 77.0% against 75.4% in the 12 months before — improving by 1.6 percentage points.

Data and methodology

Calculated by FlyerIntel from 11,013 SAN → DFW 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

Analysis last recomputed September 26, 2026

SAN airport DFW airport Return direction DFW → SAN

SAN→DFW

Right now

Route reliability

What stands out

Why SAN → DFW flights are cancelled

Share of cancellations

What each reason means

When it goes wrong

Will your connection be tight enough?

Best time to fly

By day and hour

By departure window

By departure hour

Why SAN → DFW runs late

How this route holds up in bad weather

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

This route’s airlines in bad weather at SAN

Airlines on this route

Flights on this route

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

By month

Reliability over time

Data and methodology