Carrier route record
ASSEA→CVG
Alaska Airlines · Seattle to Cincinnati
- Flights
- 431
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 54%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on SEA to CVG lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 40 minutes on average. That rests on 431 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Alaska's SEA to CVG record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 59 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 423 completed flights
Avg delay
40 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.16%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
86.2%
Every carrier on SEA to CVG, 793 flights
These figures cover 431 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 SEA to CVG
Alaska flew 431 of the 793 flights on SEA to CVG, most of the route. Its 83.2% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 86.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 89.6% to Alaska at 83.2%. 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 Linesthin sample | 362 | 89.6% | 59 min | 1.10% | A |
| Alaska Airlines (this page) | 431 | 83.2% | 40 min | 1.16% | B |
Flight by flight
Alaska flight numbers on SEA to CVG
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Departure window
When Alaska runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 431 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am249 flights83.7%
- 11am–2pm112 flights84.4%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am70 flights79.7%
Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 11am–2pm window is the strongest at 84.4% on time. The full set of windows spans 5 points.
Across the year
Alaska on SEA to CVG through the year
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights86.7%
- Oct–Dec 202589 flights79.5%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights82.6%
- Apr–Jun 2026113 flights84.1%
- Jul–Sep 2026110 flights84.9%
Scale runs 70% to 90%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 83.2% on time across 431 flights.
Quarter by quarter Alaska on SEA to CVG held fairly steady: 86.7% in Jul–Sep 2025, 79.5% in Oct–Dec 2025, 82.6% in Jan–Mar 2026, 84.1% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 84.9% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 7 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 89.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.7%, a spread of 23 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Alaska on SEA to CVG runs when it is late
Alaska on SEA to CVG often beats the schedule: 164 of 423 completed flights, 39%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 71 late arrivals split 34 under half an hour, 26 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 11 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early164 flights38.8%
- Within 15 min188 flights44.4%
- 15–29 min late34 flights8.0%
- 30–59 min late26 flights6.1%
- 1–2 hours late8 flights1.9%
- 2+ hours late3 flights0.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 423 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 92 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 36 still arrived on time. 15 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Alaska on SEA to CVG
The latest arrival of the period was on 25 December 2025, 2 hours 26 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 25 December 2025 | 2 hours 26 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 April 2026 | 2 hours 14 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 22 March 2026 | 2 hours 8 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 March 2026 | 1 hour 40 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 July 2026 | 1 hour 40 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Alaska runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 48% of the 2,830 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Carrier
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,371 of the 2,830 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,830 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.16% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.70%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.6% 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.
At 1,965 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.2% on time across 431 flights, 12 points below 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 12 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 431 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 SEA to CVG
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 431 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 83.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 423 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to CVG, every carrier
- Alaska on CVG to SEA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on SEA to CVG89.6%
- Alaska Airlines network-wide record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) delay statistics
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
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.