Carrier route record
ASSEA→GEG
Alaska Airlines · Seattle to Spokane
- Flights
- 1,820
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 35%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on SEA to GEG sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,820 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Alaska on SEA to GEG from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,805 completed flights
Avg delay
43 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.82%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
82.5%
Every carrier on SEA to GEG, 5,221 flights
These figures cover 1,820 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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 GEG
Alaska flew 1,820 of the 5,221 flights on SEA to GEG, about 35% of it. Its 75.6% on time is 7 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 82.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 87.7% to Delta at 72.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 3,058 | 87.7% | 55 min | 1.05% | A |
| Alaska Airlines (this page) | 1,820 | 75.6% | 43 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 343 | 72.7% | 79 min | 1.46% | C |
Departure window
When Alaska runs best on this route
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 1,820 flights.
- 5am–8am8 flights—
- 8am–11am123 flights82.9%
- 11am–2pm360 flights73.9%
- 2pm–5pm166 flights75.6%
- 5pm–8pm324 flights74.4%
- 8pm–5am839 flights75.5%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 73.9% on time against 82.9% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 839 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Alaska on SEA to GEG through the year
July is the worst month at 49.2% on time, 41 points below November, the best at 90.0%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 193 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 69.9%. 12 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 19,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
48% 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 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 40 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 18,778 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 7,216 of the 19,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, 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 4.3% 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 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.6% on time across 1,820 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,820 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 GEG
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 90.0% on time and July 49.2%, a swing of 41 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,805 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to GEG, every carrier
- Alaska on GEG to SEA, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on SEA to GEG87.7%
- Delta Air Lines on SEA to GEG72.7%
- 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.