Carrier route record
ASSEA→FAI
Alaska Airlines · Seattle to Fairbanks
- Flights
- 1,839
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 79%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on SEA to FAI lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,839 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Alaska on SEA to FAI from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,822 completed flights
Avg delay
44 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.71%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.8%
Every carrier on SEA to FAI, 2,321 flights
These figures cover 1,839 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 FAI
Alaska flew 1,839 of the 2,321 flights on SEA to FAI, most of the route. Its 77.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 79.6% to Alaska at 77.3%.
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 Lines | 482 | 79.6% | 77 min | 2.28% | B |
| Alaska Airlines (this page) | 1,839 | 77.3% | 44 min | 0.71% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Alaska flight numbers on SEA to FAI
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 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am362 flights77.1%
- 11am–2pm366 flights75.4%
- 2pm–5pm36 flights86.1%
- 5pm–8pm303 flights70.8%
- 8pm–5am772 flights80.4%
Scale runs 60% 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 70.8%. 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 772 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Alaska on SEA to FAI through the year
December is the weak month at 57.4% on time, against 87.5% 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. July was the busiest month here, with 185 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 74.5%. 6 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 18,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 18,117 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, 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 6,935 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.71%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.3% 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 1,533 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 83.8% on time across 1,838 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,839 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 FAI
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 87.5% on time and December 57.4%, a swing of 30 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,822 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to FAI, every carrier
- Alaska on FAI to SEA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on SEA to FAI79.6%
- Alaska Airlines network-wide record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.