Route reliability record
RNO→SEA
Reno to Seattle
- Flights
- 905
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 564 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That rests on 905 RNO to SEA flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly RNO to SEA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.8%, against 76.7% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 894 completed flights
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.99%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Alaska
78.0% on time across 793 flights
These figures cover 905 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 RNO 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 | 793 | 78.0% | 49 min | 1.13% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 112 | 67.9% | 49 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on RNO 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 38 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am295 flights89.3%
- 8am–11am154 flights72.1%
- 11am–2pm90 flights78.2%
- 2pm–5pm261 flights70.0%
- 5pm–8pm42 flights82.5%
- 8pm–5am63 flights51.6%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 51.6% on time, against 89.3% for the 5am–8am 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 295 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter RNO 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 RNO to SEA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 51.6%, a wide gap of 37.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.3%
- 8–11am72.1%
- 11am–2pm78.2%
- 2–5pm70.0%
- 5–8pm82.5%
- 8pm–5am51.6%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 32 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 59.6% on time, 32 points below May, the best at 92.0%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 116 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 69.0%, a spread of 19 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 10,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 10,156 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.99% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 564 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 runs 79.6% on time across 904 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 905 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SEA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 905 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 76.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 894 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RNO to SEA questions
How often is RNO to SEA delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.3% of the 905 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is RNO to SEA compared with the rest of the country?
76.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on RNO to SEA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 51.6%, 38 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 RNO to SEA?
August is the weakest month at 59.6% on time, compared with 92.0% in May. Across the year that is 32 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 RNO — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on RNO to SEA78.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on RNO to SEA67.9%
- RNO to LAS, a related route81.4%
- LAX to SEA, a related route85.0%
- RNO to LAX, a related route87.2%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record78.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record67.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. RNO to SEA and SEA to RNO 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.