Carrier route record
ASSEA→DFW
Alaska Airlines · Seattle to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,755
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 34%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on SEA to DFW lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 45 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,755 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 2,738 at 77.6% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Alaska on SEA to DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,723 completed flights
Avg delay
44 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.03%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.6%
Every carrier on SEA to DFW, 5,233 flights
These figures cover 1,755 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Alaska against every carrier on SEA to DFW
Alaska flew 1,755 of the 5,233 flights on SEA to DFW, about 34% of it. Its 78.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 78.9% to Frontier at 46.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines (this page) | 1,755 | 78.9% | 44 min | 1.03% | B |
| American Airlines | 2,738 | 77.6% | 98 min | 2.81% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 712 | 75.1% | 83 min | 1.69% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 28 | 46.4% | 84 min | 0.00% | F+ |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 77.6%, 3 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Alaska flight numbers on SEA to DFW
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 3 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am217 flights90.1%
- 8am–11am507 flights80.2%
- 11am–2pm323 flights73.0%
- 2pm–5pm56 flights72.7%
- 5pm–8pm355 flights78.4%
- 8pm–5am297 flights76.9%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.1% of the time, against 72.7% for the afternoon window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 507 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Alaska on SEA to DFW through the year
July is the worst month at 60.8% on time, 32 points below February, the best at 92.7%. 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 72.6%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Alaska runs late on this route
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 16,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Carrier
- 34%National Airspace System
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 5,709 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 16,042 reported delay minutes.
34% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 5,496 minutes out of 16,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.03% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.80%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.2% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 1,660 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 72.7% on time across 1,756 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,755 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 DFW
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 92.7% on time and July 60.8%, a swing of 32 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,723 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to DFW, every carrier
- Alaska on DFW to SEA, the return leg
- American Airlines on SEA to DFW77.6%
- Delta Air Lines on SEA to DFW75.1%
- Alaska Airlines network-wide record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.