Carrier route record

ASFAT→SEA

Alaska Airlines · Fresno to Seattle

Flights: 377
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 39%
Carriers: 2

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

Alaska on FAT to SEA 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 377 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Alaska on FAT to SEA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

79.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 370 completed flights

Avg delay

55 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.86%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

79.9%

Every carrier on FAT to SEA, 966 flights

These figures cover 377 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

Alaska against every carrier on FAT to SEA

Alaska flew 377 of the 966 flights on FAT to SEA, about 39% of it. Its 79.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 80.2% to Alaska at 79.5%.

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 FAT to SEA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines	589	80.2%	54 min	0.51%	B+
Alaska Airlines (this page)	377	79.5%	55 min	1.86%	B

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 27 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–8am—
8am–11am—
11am–2pm43 flights88.4%
2pm–5pm210 flights85.0%
5pm–8pm84 flights61.7%
8pm–5am40 flights77.5%

Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.7% on time, against 88.4% for the 11am–2pm slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 210 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Alaska on FAT to SEA through the year

Jul–Sep 202573 flights60.0%
Oct–Dec 202590 flights85.1%
Jan–Mar 202680 flights84.8%
Apr–Jun 2026134 flights82.8%

Scale runs 50% to 90%. 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 79.5% on time across 377 flights.

Alaska on FAT to SEA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 85.1% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 60.0%, a swing of 25 points on roughly 94 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, Friday is the strongest day at 89.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 71.9%. 18 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 4,146 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
58%
Carrier
25%
National Airspace System
17%
Extreme weather
1%

58% 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 4,146 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 58 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 4,146 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.86% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.2% 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 81.7% on time across 377 flights, within 2 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. 377 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 FAT to SEA

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 377 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 79.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 370 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