Carrier route record
ASSEA→LIH
Alaska Airlines · Seattle to Lihue
- Flights
- 729
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 67%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on SEA to LIH sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 729 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Alaska on SEA to LIH runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 51 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 719 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.27%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
73.0%
Every carrier on SEA to LIH, 1,094 flights
These figures cover 729 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
Alaska against every carrier on SEA to LIH
Alaska flew 729 of the 1,094 flights on SEA to LIH, most of the route. Its 72.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 73.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 74.7% to Alaska at 72.2%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 365 | 74.7% | 69 min | 1.64% | C |
| Alaska Airlines (this page) | 729 | 72.2% | 53 min | 0.27% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Alaska flight numbers on SEA to LIH
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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 11 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am151 flights74.7%
- 11am–2pm214 flights64.2%
- 2pm–5pm14 flights—
- 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 64.2% on time against 75.2% for 5pm–8pm. 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 350 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Alaska on SEA to LIH through the year
April is the best month on the calendar at 88.3% 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 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 75.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 65.0%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Alaska on SEA to LIH runs when it is late
Alaska on SEA to LIH often beats the schedule: 252 of 719 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 200 late arrivals split 73 under half an hour, 70 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 57 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early252 flights35.0%
- Within 15 min267 flights37.1%
- 15–29 min late73 flights10.2%
- 30–59 min late70 flights9.7%
- 1–2 hours late41 flights5.7%
- 2+ hours late16 flights2.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 719 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
59 of 197 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 30% of them. In the other direction, 62 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at LIH.
The worst days
Worst days for Alaska on SEA to LIH
The latest arrival of the period was on 4 July 2026, 4 hours 44 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 4 July 2026 | 4 hours 44 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 March 2026 | 4 hours 14 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 23 February 2026 | 3 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 January 2026 | 3 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 June 2026 | 3 hours 8 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Alaska runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 11,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,367 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 10,593 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, 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 costs
7.9% 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 roughly 55 minutes, 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 81.3% on time across 729 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 729 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 LIH
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 729 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 72.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 719 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.