Route reliability record
FAT→SEA
Fresno to Seattle
- Flights
- 966
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 748 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 966 FAT to SEA flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 589 at 80.2% on time.
Best time to fly FAT to SEA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 98.3% of the time and Saturday flights 90.0%, against 79.9% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 955 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.04%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
80.2% on time across 589 flights
These figures cover 966 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 589 | 80.2% | 54 min | 0.51% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 377 | 79.5% | 55 min | 1.86% | B |
No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 80.2%, 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.
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 | 79.8% | 80.2% | 0.51% | 5am–8am, Sat | OO 3345 08:06 |
| 2. FAT → SEAFresno to Seattle | Alaska Airlines | 78.0% | 79.5% | 1.86% | 11am–2pm, Fri | — |
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 26 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–8am60 flights98.3%
- 8am–11am362 flights72.3%
- 11am–2pm115 flights92.2%
- 2pm–5pm210 flights85.0%
- 5pm–8pm179 flights75.6%
- 8pm–5am40 flights77.5%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 98.3% of the time, against 72.3% for the morning window. That is 26 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 362 flights scheduled in it.
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. July was the busiest month here, with 123 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 90.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.6%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 44% of the 10,000 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.
- 44%Carrier
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%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 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 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 10,459 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, 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 4,582 of the 10,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.04% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.10%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.1% 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.
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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 82.8% on time across 965 flights, within 3 points 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. 966 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. 966 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 79.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 955 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 five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.1% of the 966 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on FAT to SEA?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 80.2% on time across 589 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 79.5%, 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 98.3% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 72.3%, 26 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
- SkyWest Airlines on FAT to SEA80.2%
- Alaska Airlines on FAT to SEA79.5%
- FAT to SAN, a related route76.2%
- LAX to SEA, a related route85.4%
- FAT to LAS, a related route82.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.2%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record79.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.