Route reliability record
SEA→GEG
Seattle to Spokane
- Flights
- 5,317
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 224 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 5,317 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 3,128 at 87.0% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.4%. That gap is worth roughly 40 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,262 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.96%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
SkyWest
87.0% on time across 3,128 flights
These figures cover 5,317 flights between June 2025 and May 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
Which airline is most reliable on SEA to GEG
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 87.0% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 73.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,846 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 3,128 | 87.0% | 56 min | 1.02% | A |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,846 | 73.8% | 42 min | 0.81% | C+ |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 343 | 71.3% | 78 min | 1.17% | C |
The spread between SkyWest and Alaska is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 18 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am373 flights96.2%
- 8am–11am687 flights85.0%
- 11am–2pm1,157 flights80.6%
- 2pm–5pm585 flights79.0%
- 5pm–8pm791 flights81.4%
- 8pm–5am1,724 flights78.1%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 96.2% of the time, against 78.1% for the overnight window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
July is the worst month at 69.9% on time, 19 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.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 77.9%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 43% of the 50,000 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.
- 43%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%Extreme weather
- 11%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 15% 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 2.3 times the usual weather exposure.
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, 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 22,000 of the 50,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.96% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
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 8.2% 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.1% on time across 5,280 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 5,317 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 this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 89.0% on time and July 69.9%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else.
Common questions
SEA to GEG questions
How often is SEA to GEG delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.6% of the 5,317 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SEA to GEG?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 87.0% on time across 3,128 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 73.8%, a gap of 13 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 96.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 78.1%, 18 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 July delays on SEA to GEG?
July is the weakest month at 69.9% on time, compared with 89.0% in October. Across the year that is 19 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-time record87.0%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record73.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record71.3%
- 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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.