Carrier route record

ASSEA→FAT

Alaska Airlines · Seattle to Fresno

Flights: 377
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 39%
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 FAT lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five 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 377 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Alaska's SEA to FAT record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 41 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

81.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 371 completed flights

Avg delay

47 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.33%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

82.8%

Every carrier on SEA to FAT, 965 flights

These figures cover 377 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 FAT

Alaska flew 377 of the 965 flights on SEA to FAT, about 39% of it. Its 81.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 82.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 83.6% to Alaska at 81.7%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on SEA to FAT
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines	588	83.6%	51 min	0.68%	B+
Alaska Airlines (this page)	377	81.7%	47 min	1.33%	B

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 13 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–11am43 flights88.1%
11am–2pm210 flights84.5%
2pm–5pm103 flights75.2%
5pm–8pm21 flights—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.1% of the time, against 75.2% for the afternoon window. That is 13 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 210 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Alaska on SEA to FAT through the year

Jul–Sep 202573 flights74.6%
Oct–Dec 202590 flights88.6%
Jan–Mar 202680 flights82.3%
Apr–Jun 2026134 flights80.5%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 81.7% on time across 377 flights.

Alaska on SEA to FAT did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 88.6% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 74.6%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 94 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 77.6%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 51% of the 3,224 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Carrier
51%
Late-arriving aircraft
41%
National Airspace System
7%
Extreme weather
1%

41% 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 3,224 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 41 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 3,224 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, 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 1,649 of the 3,224 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.33% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.0% 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.

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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg runs 79.5% on time across 377 flights, within 2 points 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. 377 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 FAT

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 377 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 81.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 371 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures