Route reliability record
SEA→FAI
Seattle to Fairbanks
- Flights
- 2,254
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,533 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 2 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 50 minutes on average. That rests on 2,254 SEA to FAI flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 1,780 at 79.6% on time.
Best time to fly SEA to FAI: a 2pm–5pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.5%, against 79.0% 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
79.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,229 completed flights
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.75%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Alaska
79.6% on time across 1,780 flights
These figures cover 2,254 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 FAI
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 | 1,780 | 79.6% | 43 min | 0.39% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 474 | 77.1% | 69 min | 2.11% | B |
No carrier stands out. Alaska tops the table at 79.6%, 3 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on SEA to FAI
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 Fairbanks
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 → FAISeattle to Fairbanks | Alaska Airlines | 79.3% | 79.6% | 0.39% | 2pm–5pm, Tue | — |
| 2. SEA → FAISeattle to Fairbanks | Delta Air Lines | 75.5% | 77.1% | 2.11% | 8pm–5am, Sat | DL 2186 21:45 |
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 11 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am448 flights77.0%
- 11am–2pm401 flights79.2%
- 2pm–5pm36 flights86.1%
- 5pm–8pm303 flights75.1%
- 8pm–5am1,066 flights80.7%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 86.1% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 75.1%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 1,066 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SEA to FAI 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 FAI, the best departure window is 2pm–5pm at 86.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 75.1%, a wide gap of 11.0 points. All US flights leaving 2pm–5pm ran 71.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am77.0%
- 11am–2pm79.2%
- 2–5pm86.1%
- 5–8pm75.1%
- 8pm–5am80.7%
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 34 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.
December is the weak month at 54.8% on time, against 88.6% in November. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 235 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 73.0%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 49% of the 23,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 23,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 22,823 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.75%, 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 3.8% 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 1,533 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 82.1% on time across 2,253 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,254 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 FAI 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 88.6% on time and December 54.8%, a swing of 34 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,229 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SEA to FAI questions
How often is SEA to FAI 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 21.0% of the 2,254 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 FAI?
Alaska Airlines leads at 79.6% on time across 1,780 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 77.1%, a gap of 3 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 FAI?
The 2pm–5pm departure window is the strongest at 86.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 75.1%, 11 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 December delays on SEA to FAI?
December is the weakest month at 54.8% on time, compared with 88.6% in November. Across the year that is 34 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
- FAI to SEA — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on SEA to FAI79.6%
- Delta Air Lines on SEA to FAI77.1%
- SEA to LAX, a related route82.0%
- ANC to FAI, a related route88.6%
- SEA to PHX, a related route78.2%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record79.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.1%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. SEA to FAI and FAI 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.