Route reliability record
SEA→FAT
Seattle to Fresno
- Flights
- 882
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 748 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 5 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 55 minutes on average. That rests on 882 SEA to FAT flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 465 at 83.5% on time.
Best time to fly SEA to FAT: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.2%, against 82.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 50 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 874 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.79%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
83.5% on time across 465 flights
These figures cover 882 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 FAT
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 465 | 83.5% | 61 min | 0.86% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 417 | 80.9% | 49 min | 0.72% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 83.5%, 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 FAT
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 Fresno
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 → FATSeattle to Fresno | SkyWest Airlines | 82.8% | 83.5% | 0.86% | 8am–11am, Wed | OO 3343 19:50 |
| 2. SEA → FATSeattle to Fresno | Alaska Airlines | 80.3% | 80.9% | 0.72% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 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 882 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am123 flights86.1%
- 11am–2pm256 flights82.2%
- 2pm–5pm48 flights79.2%
- 5pm–8pm105 flights77.1%
- 8pm–5am350 flights82.9%
Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 86.1% of the time, against 77.1% for the evening window. That is 9 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 350 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SEA to FAT 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 FAT, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 86.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 77.1%, a real gap of 9.0 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am86.1%
- 11am–2pm82.2%
- 2–5pm79.2%
- 5–8pm77.1%
- 8pm–5am82.9%
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 20 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 68.0% on time, 20 points below April, the best at 88.3%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 107 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 78.7%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 8,466 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,466 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 8,466 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.1% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.79%, 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 4.8% 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.
The 748 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 82.7% on time across 882 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 882 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in FAT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 882 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 82.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 874 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SEA to FAT questions
How often is SEA to FAT delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.7% of the 882 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SEA to FAT?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 83.5% on time across 465 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 80.9%, 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 FAT?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 86.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 77.1%, 9 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 FAT?
August is the weakest month at 68.0% on time, compared with 88.3% in April. Across the year that is 20 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
- FAT to SEA — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on SEA to FAT83.5%
- Alaska Airlines on SEA to FAT80.9%
- SEA to LAX, a related route82.0%
- SAN to FAT, a related route77.8%
- SEA to PHX, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record83.5%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record80.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. SEA to FAT and FAT 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.