Route reliability record
FAI→SEA
Fairbanks to Seattle
- Flights
- 2,253
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,533 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,253 FAI to SEA flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 1,779 at 83.7% on time.
Best time to fly FAI to SEA: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.7% of the time and Saturday flights 87.5%, against 82.1% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 48 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,228 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.02%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Alaska
83.7% on time across 1,779 flights
These figures cover 2,253 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 FAI to SEA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Alaska Airlines arrives on time 83.7% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 76.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 474 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 1,779 | 83.7% | 52 min | 0.62% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 474 | 76.0% | 103 min | 2.53% | B |
Alaska leads Delta by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on FAI to SEA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Fairbanks to Seattle
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. FAI → SEAFairbanks to Seattle | Alaska Airlines | 83.2% | 83.7% | 0.62% | 11am–2pm, Sat | AS 210 05:30 |
| 2. FAI → SEAFairbanks to Seattle | Delta Air Lines | 74.1% | 76.0% | 2.53% | 2pm–5pm, Sun | DL 2408 01:30 |
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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 2,253 flights.
- 5am–8am364 flights84.7%
- 8am–11am229 flights86.2%
- 11am–2pm364 flights86.7%
- 2pm–5pm484 flights77.6%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am812 flights80.5%
Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 86.7% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 77.6%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 812 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter FAI 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 FAI to SEA, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 86.7% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 77.6%, a real gap of 9.1 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am84.7%
- 8–11am86.2%
- 11am–2pm86.7%
- 2–5pm77.6%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am80.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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.
December is the weak month at 67.0% on time, against 92.7% in April. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 236 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 78.9%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 42% of the 26,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 26,368 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 26,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.02% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.09%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.6% 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 1,533 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 79.0% on time across 2,254 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,253 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. April runs 92.7% on time and December 67.0%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,228 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FAI to SEA questions
How often is FAI 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 17.9% of the 2,253 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on FAI to SEA?
Alaska Airlines leads at 83.7% on time across 1,779 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 76.0%, a gap of 8 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on FAI to SEA?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 86.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 77.6%, 9 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 December delays on FAI to SEA?
December is the weakest month at 67.0% on time, compared with 92.7% in April. Across the year that is 26 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 FAI — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on FAI to SEA83.7%
- Delta Air Lines on FAI to SEA76.0%
- FAI to ANC, a related route86.1%
- LAX to SEA, a related route85.0%
- PHX to SEA, a related route82.2%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record83.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record76.0%
- 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. FAI to SEA and SEA to FAI 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.