Carrier route record
ASBNA→SEA
Alaska Airlines · Nashville to Seattle
- Flights
- 845
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 57%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on BNA to SEA sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 845 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Alaska on BNA to SEA runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 46 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 833 completed flights
Avg delay
44 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.18%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.4%
Every carrier on BNA to SEA, 1,481 flights
These figures cover 845 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Carrier by carrier
Alaska against every carrier on BNA to SEA
Alaska flew 845 of the 1,481 flights on BNA to SEA, most of the route. Its 72.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 72.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 79.8% to Southwest at 38.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 516 | 79.8% | 60 min | 1.16% | B |
| Alaska Airlines (this page) | 845 | 72.7% | 44 min | 1.18% | C |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 120 | 38.7% | 50 min | 0.83% | F+ |
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Departure window
When Alaska runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 32 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am346 flights74.7%
- 8am–11am166 flights89.1%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm111 flights74.1%
- 5pm–8pm222 flights56.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.8% on time, against 89.1% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 346 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Alaska on BNA to SEA through the year
December is the weak month at 44.8% on time, against 83.3% in February. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 78.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 66.4%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Alaska on BNA to SEA runs when it is late
The 227 late arrivals split 107 under half an hour, 80 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 40 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early188 flights22.6%
- Within 15 min418 flights50.2%
- 15–29 min late107 flights12.8%
- 30–59 min late80 flights9.6%
- 1–2 hours late29 flights3.5%
- 2+ hours late11 flights1.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 833 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
45 of 191 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 24% of them. In the other direction, 81 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at SEA.
The worst days
Worst days for Alaska on BNA to SEA
The latest arrival of the period was on 15 February 2026, 4 hours 41 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across February, March, July and December, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 15 February 2026 | 4 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 March 2026 | 4 hours 33 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 March 2026 | 3 hours 37 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 3 July 2026 | 3 hours 34 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 December 2025 | 3 hours 29 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Alaska runs late on this route
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 9,967 reported delay minutes.
- 37%National Airspace System
- 32%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 3,664 minutes out of 9,967, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 9,967 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.18% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.24%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 1,978 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.1% on time across 845 flights, 9 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 845 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 Alaska on BNA to SEA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 845 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 72.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 833 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BNA to SEA, every carrier
- Alaska on SEA to BNA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on BNA to SEA79.8%
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to SEA38.7%
- Alaska Airlines network-wide record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.