Carrier route record

ASMSP→SEA

Alaska Airlines · Minneapolis to Seattle

Flights: 953
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 35%
Carriers: 2

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

Alaska on MSP 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 an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 953 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

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

On time

79.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 940 completed flights

Avg delay

56 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.26%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

81.1%

Every carrier on MSP to SEA, 2,690 flights

These figures cover 953 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 MSP to SEA

Alaska flew 953 of the 2,690 flights on MSP to SEA, about 35% of it. Its 79.4% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 82.1% to Alaska at 79.4%.

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 MSP to SEA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	1,737	82.1%	60 min	0.92%	B+
Alaska Airlines (this page)	953	79.4%	56 min	1.26%	B

Flight by flight

Alaska flight numbers on MSP to SEA

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 13 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–8am365 flights85.1%
8am–11am—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm345 flights72.9%
5pm–8pm192 flights78.3%
8pm–5am51 flights86.0%

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is the strongest at 86.0% on time. The full set of windows spans 13 points.

Across the year

Alaska on MSP to SEA through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.May best, December worst

December is the weak month at 41.9% on time, against 97.4% 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 123 flights.

Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 85.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 74.3%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

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 11,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
38%
National Airspace System
29%
Carrier
27%
Extreme weather
6%
Security
1%

38% 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 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 10,779 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.26% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.10%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

5.4% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 1,399 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 80.0% on time across 953 flights, within half a point 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. 953 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 MSP to SEA

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 953 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 79.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 940 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