Route reliability record
SEA→BUR
Seattle to Burbank
- Flights
- 1,658
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 937 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average. That rests on 1,658 SEA to BUR flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly SEA to BUR: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.0%, against 80.3% 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
80.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,613 completed flights
Avg delay
46 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.17%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Alaska
80.3% on time across 1,656 flights
These figures cover 1,658 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 SEA to BUR
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,656 | 80.3% | 46 min | 2.17% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Seattle to Burbank
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SEA → LAXSeattle to Los Angeles | United Airlines | 88.8% | 88.8% | 0.00% | 11am–2pm, Fri | — |
| 2. SEA → ONTSeattle to Ontario | SkyWest Airlines | 88.0% | 88.3% | 0.38% | 8am–11am, Sat | OO 4031 14:30 |
| 3. SEA → SNASeattle to Santa Ana | Alaska Airlines | 85.5% | 86.3% | 0.93% | 5am–8am, Tue | AS 699 07:15 |
| 4. SEA → LAXSeattle to Los Angeles | SkyWest Airlines | 84.4% | 85.0% | 0.68% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
| 5. SEA → SNASeattle to Santa Ana | Delta Air Lines | 81.6% | 82.4% | 1.01% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am166 flights92.2%
- 8am–11am431 flights86.7%
- 11am–2pm266 flights77.0%
- 2pm–5pm306 flights83.1%
- 5pm–8pm489 flights71.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.2% of the time, against 71.0% for the evening window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 489 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SEA to BUR 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 SEA to BUR, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 71.0%, a wide gap of 21.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.2%
- 8–11am86.7%
- 11am–2pm77.0%
- 2–5pm83.1%
- 5–8pm71.0%
- 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 25 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.
July is the worst month at 67.6% on time, 25 points below September, the best at 92.8%. 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 180 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.3%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 15,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Carrier
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 to one. The split is drawn from 14,689 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,682 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.17% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.54%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.2% 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 937 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 84.1% on time across 1,653 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,658 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 BUR 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. September runs 92.8% on time and July 67.6%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,613 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SEA to BUR questions
How often is SEA to BUR delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.7% of the 1,658 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is SEA to BUR compared with the rest of the country?
80.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SEA to BUR?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.0%, 21 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 July delays on SEA to BUR?
July is the weakest month at 67.6% on time, compared with 92.8% in September. Across the year that is 25 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
- BUR to SEA — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Hollywood Burbank (BUR) delay statistics
- SEA to LAX, a related route82.0%
- LAS to BUR, a related route78.9%
- SEA to PHX, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record80.3%
- 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. SEA to BUR and BUR to SEA 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.