The sector is held by Alaska Airlines and Breeze Airways.
Airport pair · hand carry reference
RDU Raleigh to SAN San Diego
Raleigh Durham, the United States, to San Diego International, the United States. Computed from the scheduled network held on 2026-09-07.
- Nonstop
- About once a day
- Great circle
- 3,522 km
- Block, estimated
- 4h 45m
- Door to door
- 11h 30m
What RDU to SAN looks like
The RDU to SAN sector, the carriers on it and the flying time, before anything is promised to anybody.
Raleigh RDU to San Diego SAN is a long haul sector of 3,522 km by great circle, flown nonstop about once a day.
At the cruise speed this site models for 3,522 km, 880 km an hour, and thirty minutes of taxi at the two ends, the flight blocks at about 4h 45m.
Raleigh RDU is a major hub in the network held here, 152 scheduled destinations and 243.8 departures a day. San Diego SAN has 123 destinations and 409.4 departures a day.
San Diego is 3 hours behind of Raleigh all year.
The pair sits inside the Americas, a corridor where the site already publishes 13 written lanes that go into customs and ground detail this page does not.
Who flies the sector, and how often
Average daily frequencies on RDU to SAN from the scheduled route statistics, both directions, with the operating carriers named.
| Direction | Flights a day | Flights a week | Operated by |
|---|---|---|---|
| RDU to SAN | 1.57 | 11 | Alaska Airlines, Breeze Airways |
| SAN to RDU | 1.71 | 12 | Alaska Airlines, Breeze Airways |
Two carriers hold the sector, Alaska Airlines and Breeze Airways, which gives a missed departure somewhere to go without leaving the nonstop.
Between them the two directions put about 23 departures a week on RDU to SAN, which is the number that decides whether a seat can be found today or on Thursday.
The clock from collection to signature
The same ground timings the route calculator starts from, applied to the 4h 45m block time on RDU to SAN. Change any of them in the tool further down and the total moves with them.
| Stage | Allowed | Elapsed |
|---|---|---|
| Collection and the run to RDU | 90 min | 1h 30m |
| At RDU before departure | 180 min | 4h 30m |
| RDU to SAN in the air, estimated | 285 min | 9h 15m |
| Formalities at SAN | 90 min | 10h 45m |
| Delivery run in San Diego | 45 min | 11h 30m |
| Door to door | 690 min | 11h 30m |
On the desk standard ground timings, ninety minutes to collect and reach the airport, three hours at the airport before departure, ninety minutes of arrival formalities and a forty five minute delivery run, the door to door figure for RDU to SAN is 11h 30m.
A courier who leaves Raleigh at 09:00 local is on the ground in San Diego at about 10:45 local and at the door by 13:00 the same day.
Working backwards from a six in the evening handover in San Diego, the last useful departure from Raleigh is around 14:00 local.
When the nonstop does not work
Every airport that joins the two ends, ranked by when they land, among the ones whose weaker leg is dependable enough to plan on. Connection time is allowed for the size of the hub. 41 of them join RDU to SAN.
| Connecting at | RDU to hub, flights a day | Hub to SAN, flights a day | Track, km | Estimated, gate to gate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kansas City MCI | 1.29 | 1.14 | 3,594 | 6h 35m |
| Phoenix PHX | 1.71 | 21 | 3,526 | 6h 37m |
| Charlotte CLT | 10.14 | 3.14 | 3,544 | 6h 49m |
| Dallas DAL | 1.43 | 5.14 | 3,587 | 6h 49m |
| St Louis STL | 2.29 | 1 | 3,573 | 6h 49m |
| New Orleans MSY | 1 | 1 | 3,821 | 6h 53m |
One nonstop a day means one chance a day, so the connections below are what a consignment that arrives at RDU in the afternoon actually flies on.
41 airports connect the two ends on the scheduled network held here. The quickest of the dependable ones is Kansas City MCI, where the weaker of the two legs still runs about once a day.
Through MCI the routing covers 3,594 km against the 3,522 km nonstop track and takes about 6h 35m in the air and on the ground at the hub, allowing 60 minutes to connect at an airport of that size.
That is only 1h 50m more than the nonstop, which is close enough that a connection is worth taking when the nonstop is full or badly timed.
Behind it, Phoenix PHX at 6h 37m and Charlotte CLT at 6h 49m hold the same connection, so a booking has three hubs to try before it has to wait for the nonstop.
If nothing suitable leaves Raleigh, Charlotte CLT is 209 km away by great circle and carries 219 scheduled destinations of its own, which is usually a shorter road transfer than a lost day.
If nothing suitable leaves San Diego, Tijuana TIJ is 30 km away by great circle and carries 45 scheduled destinations of its own, which is usually a shorter road transfer than a lost day.
Plan Raleigh to San Diego yourself
The same tool the dispatchers use, open to anybody and free. It is loaded with this pair already. Change either end, add a stopover or a preferred airline, and it works out the connection, the transit and the door to door clock, with the real departures underneath. Put it on your own site if it is useful to you.
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Restrictions
Where this came from, and where to look next
- Carriers and frequencies: AeroDataBox scheduled route statistics, retrieved 2026-09-07. Average daily flights, not a timetable.
- Distances: great circle from published coordinates. They read short against a flown track, which is why the block time above applies a factor to them.
- Block and connection times: the same model the route calculator lower down this page runs, at the same rounding.
- Restrictions: the airport notes file, checked 2026-09-07.
- Industrial sites: public company information. Nothing here says or implies that any company named is a customer of any courier operator.
Who publishes this. OnBoard Courier is a placement desk in Dubai. An assignment is carried out by a vetted partner operator, with the desk as the single point of contact from the quote to the signature. This page exists because our own dispatchers need the answer for RDU to SAN in the twenty minutes before a promise is made, and a reference only one operator can read is not a reference. Free to read, quote and cite. Found an error? Tell us and we will correct it.
If you need something moved rather than looked up, the desk prices a hand carry in fifteen minutes.
- The RDU airport entry
- The SAN airport entry
- Hand carry into the United States
- The written lane, San Diego to Tijuana
- The route calculator
More pairs through RDU and SAN: Boston to Raleigh, Detroit to Raleigh, Raleigh to Miami, Houston to Raleigh, Charlotte to Raleigh, Phoenix to Raleigh, New York to Raleigh, Philadelphia to Raleigh.