Carrier route record

ASCVG→SEA

Alaska Airlines · Cincinnati to Seattle

Flights: 431
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 54%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.

Alaska on CVG 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, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 431 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Alaska on CVG to SEA runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 61 extra late arrivals.

On time

71.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 423 completed flights

Avg delay

57 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.86%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

77.0%

Every carrier on CVG to SEA, 793 flights

These figures cover 431 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 CVG to SEA

Alaska flew 431 of the 793 flights on CVG to SEA, most of the route. Its 71.2% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 83.8% to Alaska at 71.2%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on CVG to SEA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Linesthin sample	362	83.8%	52 min	0.83%	B+
Alaska Airlines (this page)	431	71.2%	57 min	1.86%	C

Flight by flight

Alaska flight numbers on CVG to SEA

AS 50817:0771.3% · 278 flights

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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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am71 flights81.4%
8am–11am69 flights58.5%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm291 flights71.5%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 81.4% of the time, against 58.5% for the morning window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 291 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Alaska on CVG to SEA through the year

Jul–Sep 202530 flights90.0%
Oct–Dec 202589 flights59.1%
Jan–Mar 202689 flights56.5%
Apr–Jun 2026112 flights76.6%
Jul–Sep 2026111 flights81.7%

Scale runs 50% to 95%.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 71.2% on time across 431 flights.

Alaska on CVG to SEA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 90.0% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 56.5%, a swing of 34 points on roughly 86 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.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 56.5%, a spread of 24 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late Alaska on CVG to SEA runs when it is late

The 122 late arrivals split 54 under half an hour, 38 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 30 an hour or more.

15+ min early87 flights20.6%
Within 15 min214 flights50.6%
15–29 min late54 flights12.8%
30–59 min late38 flights9.0%
1–2 hours late18 flights4.3%
2+ hours late12 flights2.8%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 423 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

23 of 96 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 24% of them. In the other direction, 49 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 CVG to SEA

The latest arrival of the period was on 22 February 2026, 13 hours 16 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.

The latest arrivals of Alaska on CVG to SEA in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
22 February 2026	13 hours 16 minutes	Carrier
15 June 2026	4 hours 41 minutes	Carrier
7 August 2026	3 hours 59 minutes	Carrier
13 March 2026	3 hours 29 minutes	National Airspace System
18 July 2026	3 hours 24 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft

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 6,976 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
37%
National Airspace System
32%
Late-arriving aircraft
28%
Extreme weather
4%

The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,555 of the 6,976 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,976 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.86% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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 1,965 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 83.2% on time across 431 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 431 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 CVG to SEA

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 431 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 71.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 423 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures