Carrier route record

ASCVG→SEA

Alaska Airlines · Cincinnati to Seattle

Flights: 431
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 54%
Carriers: 2

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

Alaska on CVG to SEA draws a C. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about 55 minutes behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 431 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Alaska on CVG to SEA runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 120 extra late arrivals.

On time

65.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 424 completed flights

Avg delay

54 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.62%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

74.4%

Every carrier on CVG to SEA, 793 flights

These figures cover 431 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% 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.

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 65.6% on time is 9 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 84.7% to Alaska at 65.6%. 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	84.7%	50 min	0.55%	B+
Alaska Airlines (this page)	431	65.6%	54 min	1.62%	C

Flight by flight

Alaska flight numbers on CVG to SEA

AS 50818:3768.1% · 291 flights

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 11 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am21 flights—
8am–11am119 flights57.4%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm291 flights68.1%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 50% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 68.1% on time. The full set of windows spans 11 points.

Across the year

Alaska on CVG to SEA through the year

Jul–Sep 2025141 flights66.4%
Oct–Dec 202589 flights59.1%
Jan–Mar 202689 flights56.5%
Apr–Jun 2026112 flights76.6%

Scale runs 50% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 65.6% on time across 431 flights.

Alaska on CVG to SEA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 76.6% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 56.5%, a swing of 20 points on roughly 108 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 55.7%. 28 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

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 7,920 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
34%
National Airspace System
30%
Carrier
30%
Extreme weather
6%
Security
0%

No single cause dominates. late-arriving aircraft at 34%, national airspace system at 30% and carrier at 30% split the 7,920 reported delay minutes between them. An even spread like this usually means the operation is running close to its designed capacity with no one obvious weak point, and it is the hardest pattern for a traveller to route around. The split is drawn from 7,920 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.62% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

8.3% 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 55 minutes, 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 77.2% 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 65.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 424 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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