Route reliability record
SEA→BZN
Seattle to Bozeman
- Flights
- 1,566
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 543 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 4 points better than 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 1,566 SEA to BZN flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 937 at 84.2% on time.
Best time to fly SEA to BZN: a 5pm–8pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.4%, against 81.6% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 43 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,558 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.45%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
84.2% on time across 937 flights
These figures cover 1,566 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SEA to BZN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 84.2% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 77.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 629 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 937 | 84.2% | 54 min | 0.21% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 629 | 77.7% | 49 min | 0.79% | B+ |
SkyWest leads Alaska by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on SEA to BZN
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Seattle to Bozeman
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SEA → BZNSeattle to Bozeman | SkyWest Airlines | 84.0% | 84.2% | 0.21% | 5pm–8pm, Sat | OO 4039 19:59 |
| 2. SEA → BZNSeattle to Bozeman | Alaska Airlines | 77.1% | 77.7% | 0.79% | 11am–2pm, Sun | — |
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 18 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am121 flights90.8%
- 11am–2pm612 flights81.4%
- 2pm–5pm221 flights75.1%
- 5pm–8pm184 flights92.9%
- 8pm–5am428 flights77.7%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 92.9% on time. The full set of windows spans 18 points.
Explore
Filter SEA to BZN 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 BZN, the best departure window is 5pm–8pm at 92.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 75.1%, a wide gap of 17.8 points. All US flights leaving 5pm–8pm ran 68.0%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am90.8%
- 11am–2pm81.4%
- 2–5pm75.1%
- 5–8pm92.9%
- 8pm–5am77.7%
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 18 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 71.1% on time, 18 points below November, the best at 89.5%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 162 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 76.2%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 48% of the 15,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Carrier
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%Extreme weather
- 14%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 16% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.6 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 14,855 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,153 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.45%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.6% 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 543 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 84.1% on time across 1,565 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,566 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 BZN 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. November runs 89.5% on time and August 71.1%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,558 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SEA to BZN questions
How often is SEA to BZN delayed?
Roughly 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 18.4% of the 1,566 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SEA to BZN?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 84.2% on time across 937 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 77.7%, a gap of 7 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SEA to BZN?
The 5pm–8pm departure window is the strongest at 92.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 75.1%, 18 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 SEA to BZN?
August is the weakest month at 71.1% on time, compared with 89.5% in November. Across the year that is 18 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
- BZN to SEA — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on SEA to BZN84.2%
- Alaska Airlines on SEA to BZN77.7%
- SEA to LAX, a related route82.0%
- DEN to BZN, a related route78.1%
- SEA to PHX, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record84.2%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record77.7%
- Flying to ski country: which routes into the mountains run on time
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. SEA to BZN and BZN 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.