Route reliability record
BUR→SEA
Burbank to Seattle
- Flights
- 1,653
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 937 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 1,653 BUR to SEA flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly BUR to SEA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.8% of the time and Saturday flights 89.1%, against 84.1% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 68 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,607 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.36%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Alaska
84.1% on time across 1,652 flights
These figures cover 1,653 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BUR to SEA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,652 | 84.1% | 61 min | 2.36% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Burbank to Seattle
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ONT → SEAOntario to Seattle | SkyWest Airlines | 91.4% | 91.7% | 0.28% | 2pm–5pm, Sat | OO 4031 17:50 |
| 2. LAX → SEALos Angeles to Seattle | United Airlines | 89.1% | 89.1% | 0.00% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 3. SNA → SEASanta Ana to Seattle | Alaska Airlines | 86.9% | 87.9% | 1.13% | 8pm–5am, Wed | AS 1325 06:45 |
| 4. LAX → SEALos Angeles to Seattle | Delta Air Lines | 84.6% | 85.2% | 0.67% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 2980 07:00 |
| 5. LAX → SEALos Angeles to Seattle | Alaska Airlines | 84.5% | 85.2% | 0.88% | 5am–8am, Mon | AS 1301 18:09 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am361 flights87.9%
- 8am–11am134 flights91.8%
- 11am–2pm406 flights89.5%
- 2pm–5pm263 flights76.3%
- 5pm–8pm318 flights78.0%
- 8pm–5am171 flights81.0%
Scale runs 70% to 95%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.8% of the time, against 76.3% for the afternoon window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 406 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BUR to SEA by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On BUR to SEA, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 91.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 76.3%, a wide gap of 15.5 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am87.9%
- 8–11am91.8%
- 11am–2pm89.5%
- 2–5pm76.3%
- 5–8pm78.0%
- 8pm–5am81.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route'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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 92.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 180 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 89.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 78.0%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 15,695 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.36% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.42%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.3% 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.
The 937 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.3% on time across 1,658 flights, 4 points below 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,653 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SEA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 92.0% on time and November 76.6%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of November before you think about anything else. 1,607 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BUR to SEA questions
How often is BUR to SEA delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.9% of the 1,653 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is BUR to SEA compared with the rest of the country?
84.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BUR to SEA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 76.3%, 16 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 November delays on BUR to SEA?
November is the weakest month at 76.6% on time, compared with 92.0% in September. 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.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to BUR — the return legseparate record
- Hollywood Burbank (BUR) delay statistics
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- BUR to LAS, a related route80.4%
- LAX to SEA, a related route85.0%
- BUR to PHX, a related route83.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record84.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. BUR to SEA and SEA to BUR are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.