Route reliability record
FAT→SEA
Fresno to Seattle
- Flights
- 882
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 748 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 882 FAT to SEA flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 417 at 82.8% on time.
Best time to fly FAT to SEA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.7% of the time and Saturday flights 93.2%, against 82.7% 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 54 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 875 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.68%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Alaska
82.8% on time across 417 flights
These figures cover 882 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 FAT to SEA
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 417 | 82.8% | 57 min | 0.96% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 465 | 82.7% | 56 min | 0.43% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. Alaska tops the table at 82.8%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on FAT 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 Fresno 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. FAT → SEAFresno to Seattle | SkyWest Airlines | 82.3% | 82.7% | 0.43% | 5am–8am, Sat | OO 3345 08:06 |
| 2. FAT → SEAFresno to Seattle | Alaska Airlines | 82.0% | 82.8% | 0.96% | 11am–2pm, Sat | — |
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 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am122 flights96.7%
- 8am–11am288 flights74.7%
- 11am–2pm100 flights89.0%
- 2pm–5pm223 flights84.5%
- 5pm–8pm61 flights82.0%
- 8pm–5am88 flights78.4%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 96.7% of the time, against 74.7% for the morning window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 288 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter FAT 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 FAT to SEA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 96.7% on time and the worst is 8am–11am at 74.7%, a wide gap of 22.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am96.7%
- 8–11am74.7%
- 11am–2pm89.0%
- 2–5pm84.5%
- 5–8pm82.0%
- 8pm–5am78.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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 70.5% on time, against 89.8% in March. 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 107 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 93.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 73.5%, a spread of 20 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 8,517 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 41%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,517 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 25 to one. The split is drawn from 8,517 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,533 of the 8,517 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.68%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.7% 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 748 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 runs 82.3% on time across 882 flights, within half 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. 882 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SEA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 882 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 82.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 875 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FAT to SEA questions
How often is FAT 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 17.3% of the 882 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on FAT to SEA?
Alaska Airlines leads at 82.8% on time across 417 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 82.7%, a gap of half a point. 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 FAT to SEA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.7% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 74.7%, 22 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 FAT to SEA?
December is the weakest month at 70.5% on time, compared with 89.8% in March. Across the year that is 19 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 FAT — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on FAT to SEA82.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on FAT to SEA82.7%
- FAT to SAN, a related route73.2%
- LAX to SEA, a related route85.0%
- FAT to LAS, a related route81.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record82.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record82.7%
- 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. FAT to SEA and SEA to FAT 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.