Route reliability record
SEA→LIH
Seattle to Lihue
- Flights
- 1,094
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,700 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,094 SEA to LIH flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 365 at 74.7% on time.
Best time to fly SEA to LIH: a 2pm–5pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 75.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 74.5%, against 73.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 43 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,078 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.73%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
74.7% on time across 365 flights
These figures cover 1,094 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 LIH
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 365 | 74.7% | 69 min | 1.64% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 729 | 72.2% | 53 min | 0.27% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 74.7%, 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 LIH
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 Lihue
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 → LIHSeattle to Lihue | Delta Air Lines | 73.5% | 74.7% | 1.64% | 2pm–5pm, Sat | DL 345 14:30 |
| 2. SEA → LIHSeattle to Lihue | Alaska Airlines | 72.0% | 72.2% | 0.27% | 5pm–8pm, Wed | AS 237 18:13 |
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 11 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am151 flights74.7%
- 11am–2pm230 flights64.5%
- 2pm–5pm363 flights75.6%
- 5pm–8pm350 flights75.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 80%. 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 64.5% on time against 75.6% for 2pm–5pm. 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 363 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SEA to LIH 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 LIH, the best departure window is 2pm–5pm at 75.6% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 64.5%, a wide gap of 11.1 points. All US flights leaving 2pm–5pm ran 71.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am74.7%
- 11am–2pm64.5%
- 2–5pm75.6%
- 5–8pm75.2%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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.
April is the best month on the calendar at 90.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 74.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 68.6%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 42% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,147 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 16,840 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.73%, 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
7.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,700 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.5% on time across 1,094 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,094 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 LIH after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,094 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 73.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,078 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SEA to LIH questions
How often is SEA to LIH delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.0% of the 1,094 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 LIH?
Delta Air Lines leads at 74.7% on time across 365 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 72.2%, 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 LIH?
The 2pm–5pm departure window is the strongest at 75.6% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 64.5%, 11 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 March delays on SEA to LIH?
March is the weakest month at 58.6% on time, compared with 90.0% in April. Across the year that is 31 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
- LIH to SEA — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on SEA to LIH74.7%
- Alaska Airlines on SEA to LIH72.2%
- SEA to LAX, a related route82.0%
- HNL to LIH, a related route83.7%
- SEA to PHX, a related route78.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record74.7%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record72.2%
- 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 LIH and LIH 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.