Route reliability record
SEA→GEG
Seattle to Spokane
- Flights
- 4,956
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 224 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 6 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 an hour on average. That rests on 4,956 SEA to GEG flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 2,869 at 87.6% on time.
Best time to fly SEA to GEG: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.4% of the time and Saturday flights 87.1%, against 83.1% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 58 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,905 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.93%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
87.6% on time across 2,869 flights
These figures cover 4,956 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 GEG
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 87.6% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 77.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,744 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 2,869 | 87.6% | 60 min | 1.12% | A |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,744 | 77.9% | 43 min | 0.52% | B+ |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 343 | 72.5% | 93 min | 1.46% | C |
SkyWest leads Alaska by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on SEA to GEG
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 Spokane
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 → GEGSeattle to Spokane | SkyWest Airlines | 86.6% | 87.6% | 1.12% | 5am–8am, Sat | OO 3830 07:15 |
| 2. SEA → GEGSeattle to Spokane | Alaska Airlines | 77.5% | 77.9% | 0.52% | 2pm–5pm, 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 matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 15 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am373 flights95.4%
- 8am–11am682 flights85.5%
- 11am–2pm933 flights81.7%
- 2pm–5pm565 flights82.9%
- 5pm–8pm782 flights83.1%
- 8pm–5am1,621 flights80.3%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.4% of the time, against 80.3% for the overnight window. That is 15 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 1,621 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SEA to GEG 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 GEG, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 80.3%, a wide gap of 15.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.4%
- 8–11am85.5%
- 11am–2pm81.7%
- 2–5pm82.9%
- 5–8pm83.1%
- 8pm–5am80.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 72.2% on time, 17 points below October, the best at 89.0%. 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 462 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 77.5%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 50% of the 46,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Carrier
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%Extreme weather
- 10%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 17% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 46,388 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 23,000 of the 46,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.93% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.10%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.4% 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 224 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 85.7% on time across 4,927 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 4,956 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 GEG 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. October runs 89.0% on time and August 72.2%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 4,905 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SEA to GEG questions
How often is SEA to GEG 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 16.9% of the 4,956 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SEA to GEG?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 87.6% on time across 2,869 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 77.9%, a gap of 10 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 GEG?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 80.3%, 15 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 GEG?
August is the weakest month at 72.2% on time, compared with 89.0% in October. Across the year that is 17 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
- GEG to SEA — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on SEA to GEG87.6%
- Alaska Airlines on SEA to GEG77.9%
- Delta Air Lines on SEA to GEG72.5%
- SEA to LAX, a related route82.0%
- DEN to GEG, a related route76.3%
- SEA to PHX, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record87.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record77.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record72.5%
- 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 GEG and GEG 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.