Carrier route record
ASRNO→SEA
Alaska Airlines · Reno to Seattle
- Flights
- 793
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 88%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on RNO to SEA lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That rests on 793 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Alaska on RNO to SEA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 782 completed flights
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.13%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.7%
Every carrier on RNO to SEA, 905 flights
These figures cover 793 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
Alaska against every carrier on RNO to SEA
Alaska flew 793 of the 905 flights on RNO to SEA, most of the route. Its 78.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 78.0% to SkyWest at 67.9%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 793 | 78.0% | 49 min | 1.13% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 112 | 67.9% | 49 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Alaska flight numbers on RNO to SEA
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 37 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am281 flights88.8%
- 8am–11am56 flights87.5%
- 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 88.8% 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 281 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Alaska on RNO to SEA through the year
August is the worst month at 64.4% on time, 27 points below May, the best at 91.3%. 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 85 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 69.8%, a spread of 19 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Alaska on RNO to SEA runs when it is late
Alaska on RNO to SEA often beats the schedule: 217 of 782 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 172 late arrivals split 75 under half an hour, 57 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 40 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early217 flights27.7%
- Within 15 min393 flights50.3%
- 15–29 min late75 flights9.6%
- 30–59 min late57 flights7.3%
- 1–2 hours late26 flights3.3%
- 2+ hours late14 flights1.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 782 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
38 of 160 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 24% of them. In the other direction, 50 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at SEA.
The worst days
Worst days for Alaska on RNO to SEA
The latest arrival of the period was on 20 December 2025, 4 hours 2 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 20 December 2025 | 4 hours 2 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 January 2026 | 3 hours 49 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 7 September 2025 | 3 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 October 2025 | 3 hours 13 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 July 2026 | 2 hours 47 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Alaska runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 8,388 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%National Airspace System
- 22%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,388 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 8,388 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 88.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.13% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.25%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.1% 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 78.1% on time across 791 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. 793 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 RNO to SEA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 793 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 78.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 782 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RNO to SEA, every carrier
- Alaska on SEA to RNO, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on RNO to SEA67.9%
- Alaska Airlines network-wide record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.