Route reliability record
GEG→SEA
Spokane to Seattle
- Flights
- 4,927
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 224 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route earns an 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 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 4,927 GEG to SEA flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 2,841 at 87.6% on time.
Best time to fly GEG to SEA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.9%, against 85.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 84 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,874 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.01%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
87.6% on time across 2,841 flights
These figures cover 4,927 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 GEG to SEA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 87.6% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 81.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,743 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 343 | 93.2% | 152 min | 1.46% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines | 2,841 | 87.6% | 68 min | 1.09% | A |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,743 | 81.1% | 49 min | 0.80% | B+ |
SkyWest leads Alaska by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on GEG 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 Spokane 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. GEG → SEASpokane to Seattle | SkyWest Airlines | 86.6% | 87.6% | 1.09% | 5am–8am, Wed | OO 3832 19:23 |
| 2. GEG → SEASpokane to Seattle | Alaska Airlines | 80.5% | 81.1% | 0.80% | 5am–8am, 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 19 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,653 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am561 flights81.4%
- 11am–2pm1,184 flights82.7%
- 2pm–5pm568 flights87.1%
- 5pm–8pm882 flights81.4%
- 8pm–5am79 flights72.2%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.6% of the time, against 72.2% for the overnight window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 1,653 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter GEG 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 GEG to SEA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 72.2%, a wide gap of 19.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.6%
- 8–11am81.4%
- 11am–2pm82.7%
- 2–5pm87.1%
- 5–8pm81.4%
- 8pm–5am72.2%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
August is the worst month at 76.6% on time, 15 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. October was the busiest month here, with 447 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 78.5%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 42% of the 43,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Carrier
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%Extreme weather
- 16%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 19% 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 3.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 43,237 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 18,000 of the 43,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.01% against a national 1.89%, 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 3.9% 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.
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 runs 83.1% on time across 4,956 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.
The sample behind these figures is 4,927 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SEA after this flight
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 August 76.6%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 4,874 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
GEG to SEA questions
How often is GEG to SEA delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.3% of the 4,927 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on GEG to SEA?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 87.6% on time across 2,841 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 81.1%, a gap of 7 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 91.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 72.2%, 19 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 August delays on GEG to SEA?
August is the weakest month at 76.6% on time, compared with 91.5% in May. Across the year that is 15 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 GEG to SEA93.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on GEG to SEA87.6%
- Alaska Airlines on GEG to SEA81.1%
- GEG to DEN, a related route84.2%
- LAX to SEA, a related route85.0%
- GEG to SLC, a related route90.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record93.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record87.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record81.1%
- 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.
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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.