Carrier route record
ASSEA→ANC
Alaska Airlines · Seattle to Anchorage
- Flights
- 4,928
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 74%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on SEA to ANC sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 4,928 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Alaska on SEA to ANC from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,873 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.12%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.2%
Every carrier on SEA to ANC, 6,681 flights
These figures cover 4,928 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
Alaska against every carrier on SEA to ANC
Alaska flew 4,928 of the 6,681 flights on SEA to ANC, most of the route. Its 74.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 77.9% to Hawaiian at 53.7%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,630 | 77.9% | 61 min | 0.61% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines (this page) | 4,928 | 74.8% | 47 min | 1.12% | C |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 123 | 53.7% | 59 min | 1.63% | F |
Flight by flight
Alaska flight numbers on SEA to ANC
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 17 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–8am298 flights88.3%
- 8am–11am914 flights76.4%
- 11am–2pm813 flights71.3%
- 2pm–5pm640 flights78.1%
- 5pm–8pm822 flights71.8%
- 8pm–5am1,441 flights73.4%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 71.3% on time against 88.3% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 1,441 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Alaska on SEA to ANC through the year
December is the weak month at 55.0% on time, against 89.6% in September. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 515 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.8%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Alaska runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 44% of the 58,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 44%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 25,000 of the 58,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 57,697 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 88.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.12% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.1% 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 roughly 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,448 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.7% on time across 4,926 flights, 11 points above 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 11 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,928 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.
What to do with this
Booking Alaska on SEA to ANC
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 89.6% on time and December 55.0%, a swing of 35 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 4,873 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to ANC, every carrier
- Alaska on ANC to SEA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on SEA to ANC77.9%
- Hawaiian Airlines on SEA to ANC53.7%
- 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 7.04 million flight records
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.