Carrier route record
DLFAI→SEA
Delta Air Lines · Fairbanks to Seattle
- Flights
- 482
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 21%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on FAI to SEA lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 482 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on FAI to SEA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 469 completed flights
Avg delay
104 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.70%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
82.7%
Every carrier on FAI to SEA, 2,320 flights
These figures cover 482 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on FAI to SEA
Delta flew 482 of the 2,320 flights on FAI to SEA, about 21% of it. Its 78.3% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 82.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 83.8% to Delta at 78.3%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 1,838 | 83.8% | 50 min | 0.87% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 482 | 78.3% | 104 min | 2.70% | B |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on FAI to SEA
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
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 482 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm121 flights81.8%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am361 flights77.0%
Scale runs 70% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 2pm–5pm window is the strongest at 81.8% on time. The full set of windows spans 5 points.
Across the year
Delta on FAI to SEA through the year
Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 72.2%. July is the strongest month at 91.8%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 20 points. July was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 86.8% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 69.7%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 48% of the 11,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 48%Carrier
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 23 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 10,568 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 5,069 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.70%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.5% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 runs 79.6% on time across 482 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 482 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 Delta on FAI to SEA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 482 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 78.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 469 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
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.