Route reliability record
GEG→SEA
Spokane to Seattle
- Flights
- 5,280
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 224 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route earns a A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 55 minutes. That rests on 5,280 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 3,089 at 87.7% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.4%. That gap is worth roughly 77 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,223 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.02%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
SkyWest
87.7% on time across 3,089 flights
These figures cover 5,280 flights between June 2025 and May 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 GEG to SEA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 87.7% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 79.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,848 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 343 | 93.5% | 140 min | 1.17% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines | 3,089 | 87.7% | 62 min | 0.97% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,848 | 79.4% | 42 min | 1.08% | B |
SkyWest leads Alaska by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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 14 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,714 flights92.7%
- 8am–11am640 flights78.7%
- 11am–2pm1,244 flights81.9%
- 2pm–5pm714 flights85.2%
- 5pm–8pm968 flights80.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.7% of the time, against 78.7% for the morning window. That is 14 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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.
June is the worst month at 79.0% on time, 13 points below May, the best at 91.5%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 79.9%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 42,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Carrier
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 18%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 18% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.8 times the usual weather exposure.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, 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 16,000 of the 42,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.02% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.06%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.6% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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 224 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.4% on time across 5,317 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 5,280 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 91.5% on time and June 79.0%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else.
Common questions
GEG to SEA questions
How often is GEG to SEA delayed?
About one flight in seven arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.9% of the 5,280 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on GEG to SEA?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 87.7% on time across 3,089 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 79.4%, 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 GEG to SEA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.7% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 78.7%, 14 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 June delays on GEG to SEA?
June is the weakest month at 79.0% on time, compared with 91.5% in May. Across the year that is 13 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 GEG — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record93.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record87.7%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record79.4%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. GEG to SEA and SEA to GEG are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.