San Diego Airport (SAN): terminals, flights

San Diego International Airport (IATA: SAN, ICAO: KSAN) is a network point for San Diego, USA. Our catalogue shows 0 departing routes and 3 arriving, with the airlines, frequencies and lowest peso (MXN) fares listed below.

Airport facts

SAN carries 3 routes and 2 airlines in our catalogue, totalling 49 weekly departures. San Diego International Airport (ICAO KSAN) serves San Diego, the United States, in the America/Los_Angeles zone (UTC−7 in July). Its coordinates (32.733563, -117.189663) are the basis of every distance on this site.

• IATA: SAN
• ICAO: KSAN
• City: San Diego
• Country: USA
• Time zone: America/Los_Angeles
• Coordinates: 32.733563, -117.189663
• Airlines at the airport: 2

Time difference against Mexico City. In July, San Diego runs 1 h behind the Mexican capital (UTC−7 versus UTC−6). In January the airport operates on UTC−8, so the gap is not constant across the year: daylight saving shifts it. This is the calculation that decides whether a pre-booked ground connection still works.

What each code is for. The IATA code (SAN) is what the bag tag and the ticket use; the ICAO code (KSAN) is what flight plans, NOTAMs and flight trackers use. To follow the inbound aircraft that will become your flight, ICAO is the one that returns reliable results. And if SAN is not printed on your bag tag, the bag was not checked through to here — worth catching at the counter.

Airlines at SAN

2 catalogued airlines operate routes to or from SAN: 1 full-service and 1 low-cost, with checked allowance from 0 to 25 kg. Alliances present: SkyTeam. They cover 3 catalogued routes and 49 weekly departures. The table below lists each operator with its type, alliance and checked allowance.

Carriers in our catalogue operating routes to or from this airport, with type, alliance and economy baggage allowance:

What US DOT does not cover. The United States has no federal delay compensation: the Department of Transportation regulates refunds — your money back when the airline cancels or significantly changes the flight and you decline the alternative — but it does not require a payout for the hours you lost, the way EU261 does. The single federal exception is involuntary denied boarding from oversales, priced under 14 CFR Part 250; that is a different mechanism from delay and is not triggered by a late departure.

How this list is built. These are the airlines appearing in catalogued routes that touch SAN, not the airport’s full directory: a carrier that flies here but not on a pair we cover does not appear. The type — full-service or low-cost — and the allowance come from our own record for each carrier, and where the datum does not exist we say so rather than filling it with a plausible number.

Routes to San Diego (SAN)

Our catalogue lists 3 routes into SAN, totalling 49 weekly departures and spanning 30 to 2,330 km. The busiest is TIJ-SAN at ~21 flights a week; 1 of them carry a cached fare, spread across 1 audience profiles. Every row in this section comes from that same corridor catalogue, not from a live search.

What traffic SAN moves. By audience profile, the routes catalogued here split as: Mexico-US paisano corridor (3). That mix explains the airport’s seasonality: family corridors spike in December and Holy Week, leisure ones follow the holiday calendar, and regional ones stay flatter across the year.

Why some rows have no fare. Of the 3 routes listed, 1 returned a price on the collector’s last pass and the rest show a dash. A dash means the automated query got no result for that pair — not that the route is suspended or expensive. For those pairs the reference price comes from the live search, which queries current inventory.

Connection tips

SAN concentrates 49 catalogued weekly departures across 2 airlines, in the America/Los_Angeles zone. That density is what decides how much slack to leave on a connection: the more of its own services the airline runs here, the more same-day rebooking options exist.

San Diego International Airport runs on the America/Los_Angeles time zone; factor the offset from your origin city when planning connections and transfers. The busiest route at SAN is TIJ-SAN (~21 flights a week). The lowest fare detected at this airport is $6,646 MXN on the MEX-SAN route. Book 4–8 weeks ahead for the busiest routes to/from San Diego; fares climb in December, Holy Week and summer. Each route guide above shows month-by-month seasonality and the lowest peso fare. That window is a general Mexican-market rule of thumb, not a measurement of this route: our series records observed prices, not the lead time at which each ticket was bought.

The cheap connection that loses the checked bag. Two separate tickets are not one itinerary: there is no interline agreement, the bag is not checked through to the final destination, and if the first flight lands late the second airline owes you nothing — it sold a different flight. The apparent saving evaporates the moment you buy a same-day replacement. On a single ticket, rebooking and the bag transfer are the carrier’s problem, not yours.

A US layover needs a visa too. The United States has no visa-free international transit: with a Mexican passport you need a B1/B2 or C-1 visa merely to change planes in Houston, Dallas, Miami or Atlanta, even without leaving the terminal. Every US connection forces you through immigration, bag reclaim, customs and re-check. A US-routed itinerary that looks cheaper can therefore be unusable if your visa has expired or is still in process.

Other airports in USA

12 further the United States airports appear in our catalogue besides SAN, with 47 routes between them. The best-connected is Dallas (DFW) with 10 routes, and the nearest sits ~176 km great-circle from SAN. The 12 distances in this section are measured from each airport’s own coordinates.

Other airports in the same country in our catalogue, with the number of catalogued routes — useful if you need an alternative gateway:

Great-circle distance is not the transfer. The figures in the table are geodesic, computed from each airport’s coordinates; the real journey depends on whether road, rail or a domestic flight exists, and on what they cost. An airport 300 km away can be more accessible than one at 120 km if the first has a direct motorway and the second does not. Use them to rule out, not to plan.

FAQ

The 9 questions on this record are answered from catalogue figures for SAN: routes and weekly frequencies, minimum fares observed by the collector, checked-baggage allowances and the rights regime that applies on each leg. No answer adds data that is not in those sources.

What are the IATA and ICAO codes for San Diego airport? The IATA code is SAN and the ICAO code is KSAN. San Diego International Airport serves San Diego, USA.

Which airlines operate at SAN? Airlines on our catalogued routes at SAN: Volaris, Aeromexico.

How many routes are there from San Diego (SAN)? Our catalogue lists 0 departing routes and 3 arriving at SAN — see the tables above.

What time zone is SAN in? SAN operates in the America/Los_Angeles time zone.

How many weekly departures does SAN have in this catalogue? Across the catalogued routes touching SAN we count 49 weekly departures over 2 airlines and 3 routes. That is the coverage relevant to Mexican travellers, not the airport’s full directory.

What is the time difference between San Diego and Mexico City? In July, San Diego runs 1 h behind Mexico City (UTC−7 versus UTC−6). The gap shifts with daylight saving, so recompute it for your exact date before booking transfers.

What is the longest catalogued route at SAN? Catalogued routes at SAN span 30 to 2,330 km great-circle, computed from each airport’s coordinates. That distance drives aircraft type and the applicable compensation band on European sectors.

What is the lowest fare detected at SAN? $6,646 MXN on MEX-SAN, per the collector’s last pass across 1 routes with data at this airport. It is an observed one-way minimum, not a guaranteed price or a bookable offer.

Which airlines are based at SAN? Alaska Airlines run SAN as a base. An airline based here keeps aircraft and crews overnight, so it has more of its own services to rebook a disrupted passenger onto the same day.

Related

• USA airports

Published by FlightsMX Editorial Team. Last verified: May 2026.