Airline on-time record

AS

Alaska Airlines

Flights: 293,372
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Airports: 25
US rank: #8 by volume

Alaska Airlines lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 293,372 flights, of which Santa Ana (SNA) flew 4,377 at 89.6% on time.

Santa Ana (SNA) is the most reliable of the 25 airports covered here at 89.6% on time across 4,377 flights.

On time

79.1%

National average is 77.6%

Avg delay

52 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

1.28%

National rate is 1.81%

Largest base

SEA

76,697 departures, 77.2% on time

These figures cover 293,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.

Airport by airport

Where Alaska Airlines runs well, and where it does not

The choice of airport is not cosmetic here. Santa Ana (SNA) arrives on time 89.6% of the time; Chicago (ORD) manages 69.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 3,253 flights means less than a ten-point one.

Alaska Airlines on-time performance by departure airport
Airport	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SEA · Seattle	76,697	77.2%	47 min	1.05%	B
PDX · Portland	23,363	83.2%	47 min	0.71%	B+
HNL · Honolulu	17,970	76.7%	46 min	1.51%	B
ANC · Anchorage	14,800	85.5%	56 min	1.39%	A
SAN · San Diego	12,721	78.8%	57 min	1.46%	B
SFO · San Francisco	10,554	76.3%	55 min	1.07%	B
LAX · Los Angeles	9,294	81.8%	55 min	0.90%	B+
OGG · Kahului	8,869	75.7%	47 min	1.25%	B
LAS · Las Vegas	6,759	79.4%	60 min	1.02%	B
KOA · Kailua-Kona	6,165	79.0%	50 min	1.39%	B
LIH · Lihue	5,700	77.3%	50 min	1.91%	B
PHX · Phoenix	5,599	85.4%	56 min	0.70%	A+
JNU · Juneau	4,576	82.1%	66 min	2.25%	B
SNA · Santa Ana	4,377	89.6%	48 min	1.33%	A
JFK · New York	3,961	70.4%	64 min	2.60%	C
ORD · Chicago	3,253	69.0%	62 min	1.75%	C
FAI · Fairbanks	3,247	84.4%	56 min	0.92%	B+
EWR · Newark	3,077	73.2%	69 min	2.27%	C
GEG · Spokane	2,946	85.0%	44 min	1.12%	A
SJC · San Jose	2,763	85.3%	51 min	1.19%	A
DEN · Denver	2,700	76.0%	56 min	0.89%	B+
BUR · Burbank	2,611	86.3%	61 min	2.03%	A
BOS · Boston	2,486	71.2%	53 min	1.17%	C
MCO · Orlando	2,462	75.9%	60 min	0.73%	B+
ITO · Hilo	2,424	75.2%	42 min	1.90%	B

The spread between SNA and ORD is 21 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 21 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

Route by route

Busiest Alaska Airlines routes

These are the 25 routes Alaska Airlines flies most often, each against its network-wide 79.1%. Route-level variation inside a single airline is routinely wider than the gap between two airlines nationally.

Busiest Alaska Airlines routes by flight volume
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SEA to ANC	4,928	74.8%	47 min	1.12%	C
ANC to SEA	4,926	85.7%	52 min	1.24%	A
OGG to HNL	3,507	75.8%	43 min	1.74%	B
HNL to OGG	3,504	76.9%	40 min	1.60%	B
SEA to LAX	3,282	81.0%	43 min	1.07%	B
LAX to SEA	3,279	85.2%	49 min	1.10%	A
LIH to HNL	2,932	76.9%	47 min	2.86%	B
HNL to LIH	2,929	77.7%	40 min	2.53%	B
SEA to PHX	2,906	79.0%	45 min	0.65%	B+
PHX to SEA	2,903	84.9%	56 min	0.76%	B+
KOA to HNL	2,783	77.4%	46 min	1.80%	B
HNL to KOA	2,781	81.9%	39 min	1.65%	B
SEA to SAN	2,765	75.0%	44 min	1.45%	B
SAN to SEA	2,763	77.8%	61 min	2.10%	B
SFO to SEA	2,719	69.1%	53 min	1.62%	C
SEA to SFO	2,716	60.3%	52 min	1.40%	D
SEA to LAS	2,638	78.0%	47 min	0.91%	B+
LAS to SEA	2,638	82.8%	64 min	1.25%	B
SEA to SNA	2,608	86.3%	39 min	1.15%	A
SNA to SEA	2,606	87.5%	50 min	1.34%	A
HNL to ITO	2,269	79.5%	39 min	2.03%	B
ITO to HNL	2,266	74.5%	43 min	2.03%	C
LAX to PDX	1,899	90.0%	51 min	0.90%	A+
PDX to LAX	1,897	86.5%	49 min	0.84%	A+
SEA to SJC	1,877	80.6%	45 min	1.55%	B

Departure window

The best time of day to fly Alaska Airlines

Departure time matters more here than the choice of airport. The gap between the best and worst window is 12 points, against 21 points between the best and worst airport. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am45,273 flights86.9%
8am–11am60,109 flights81.4%
11am–2pm48,062 flights77.5%
2pm–5pm47,403 flights76.7%
5pm–8pm53,503 flights74.5%
8pm–5am39,022 flights77.7%

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.9% of the time, against 74.5% for the evening window. That is 12 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 60,109 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Alaska Airlines through the calendar

Alaska's year swings by 15 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, July worst

July is the worst month at 69.4% on time, 15 points below April, the best at 84.2%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. June was the busiest month here, with 29,891 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 76.4%. 6 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

What holds Alaska Airlines up

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 3.13 million reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
39%
Carrier
32%
National Airspace System
24%
Extreme weather
4%
Security
0%

39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 3.13 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 3,128,468 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.9% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.28% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.

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 are the roughly 50 minutes kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

293,372 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.

What to do with this

Booking Alaska Airlines

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 84.2% on time and July 69.4%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 288,810 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

Alaska Airlines reliability questions

How often is Alaska Airlines delayed?

About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.9% of the 293,372 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.

Which airport does Alaska Airlines run best from?

Santa Ana (SNA) leads at 89.6% on time across 4,377 flights. Chicago (ORD) is at the other end on 69.0%, a gap of 21 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.

What time of day has the fewest delays on Alaska Airlines?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 74.5%, 12 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.

How bad are July delays on Alaska Airlines?

July is the weakest month at 69.4% on time, compared with 84.2% in April. Across the year that is 15 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures