Flight number record

AS 3

Alaska Airlines · Washington to Seattle

Route: DCA → SEA
Departs: 17:00
Flights: 364
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s AS 3, check with Alaska Airlines.

AS 3 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so AS 3 runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 42 extra late arrivals.

On time

73.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 357 completed flights

Avg delay

61 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.10%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

8.1%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 364 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Schedule

When AS 3 flies

AS 3 flies DCA to SEA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 17:00, used on 211 of 364 flights, with 17:02 (50 flights) and 17:06 (45 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 17:00211 flights58.0%
Departs 17:0250 flights13.7%
Departs 17:0645 flights12.4%

Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.

A 17:00 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and AS 3 runs 5 points better at 73.4%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.

Against the route

AS 3 next to DCA to SEA

Every carrier on DCA to SEA combined arrived on time 73.2% of the time across 1,094 flights, so AS 3 is about level with it. Alaska flew 729 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.7% on time. Across its whole network Alaska Airlines managed 79.1%, which this flight trails by 6 points.

AS 3 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
AS 3thin sample	364	73.4%	61 min	1.10%	C
All Alaska Airlines on DCA–SEA	729	76.7%	54 min	1.10%	B
All carriers on DCA–SEA	1,094	73.2%	70 min	1.74%	C
Alaska Airlines, whole network	293,372	79.1%	52 min	1.28%	B

Across the year

AS 3 quarter by quarter

AS 3 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 83.3% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 61.4%, a swing of 22 points on roughly 91 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Jul–Sep 202592 flights80.7%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights68.1%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights61.4%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights83.3%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, AS 3 did best on Saturday at 86.3% on time and worst on Sunday at 58.0%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 28 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why AS 3 runs late

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 5,822 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
38%
National Airspace System
31%
Carrier
19%
Extreme weather
12%

Extreme weather accounts for 12% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the quarterly figures above are the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 5,822 delay minutes reported on AS 3.

Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.82%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

8.1% 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 last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 2,329 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

Every one of the 364 flights under AS 3 in the data flew DCA to SEA. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 364 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking AS 3

For a booking, read AS 3 as 73.4% on time with 1.10% cancelled over 364 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.

Where to go next

A flight number here means Alaska Airlines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures