Route reliability record
KTN→SEA
Ketchikan to Seattle
- Flights
- 1,316
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 680 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns a B. 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 a little over an hour. That rests on 1,316 KTN to SEA flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly KTN to SEA: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.3%, against 84.9% 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 76 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,282 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.58%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Alaska
84.9% on time across 1,316 flights
These figures cover 1,316 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 KTN to SEA
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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 1,316 | 84.9% | 72 min | 2.58% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on KTN 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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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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am362 flights85.0%
- 11am–2pm485 flights86.3%
- 2pm–5pm107 flights74.8%
- 5pm–8pm362 flights86.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 86.3% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 74.8%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 485 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter KTN 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 KTN to SEA, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 86.3% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 74.8%, a wide gap of 11.5 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am85.0%
- 11am–2pm86.3%
- 2–5pm74.8%
- 5–8pm86.2%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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 72.1% on time, against 96.4% in May. 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 155 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 79.8%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 62% of the 14,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 62%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
62% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 33 to one. The split is drawn from 13,801 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.58%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.9% 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.
The 680 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.4% on time across 1,315 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,316 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 96.4% on time and December 72.1%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,282 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
KTN to SEA questions
How often is KTN 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 15.1% of the 1,316 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is KTN to SEA compared with the rest of the country?
84.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 8 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on KTN to SEA?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 86.3% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 74.8%, 12 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 KTN to SEA?
December is the weakest month at 72.1% on time, compared with 96.4% in May. Across the year that is 24 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 KTN — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- LAX to SEA, a related route85.0%
- PHX to SEA, a related route82.2%
- SFO to SEA, a related route72.3%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record84.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. KTN to SEA and SEA to KTN 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.