Carrier route record
ASSEA→PSP
Alaska Airlines · Seattle to Palm Springs
- Flights
- 1,071
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 65%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on SEA to PSP 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 roughly 45 minutes on average. That rests on 1,071 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Alaska's SEA to PSP record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 63 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,061 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
82.7%
Every carrier on SEA to PSP, 1,641 flights
These figures cover 1,071 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Alaska against every carrier on SEA to PSP
Alaska flew 1,071 of the 1,641 flights on SEA to PSP, most of the route. Its 83.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 82.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 83.6% to SkyWest at 80.3%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines (this page) | 1,071 | 83.6% | 47 min | 0.65% | B+ |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 179 | 82.9% | 53 min | 2.23% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 391 | 80.3% | 52 min | 1.28% | B |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 13 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am141 flights92.1%
- 8am–11am447 flights83.8%
- 11am–2pm136 flights79.1%
- 2pm–5pm204 flights82.6%
- 5pm–8pm90 flights80.9%
- 8pm–5am53 flights79.2%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 79.1% on time against 92.1% for 5am–8am. 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 447 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Alaska on SEA to PSP through the year
July is the worst month at 66.7% on time, 27 points below September, the best at 93.3%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 156 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 80.5%, a spread of 7 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Alaska on SEA to PSP runs when it is late
Alaska on SEA to PSP often beats the schedule: 319 of 1,061 completed flights, 30%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 174 late arrivals split 85 under half an hour, 54 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 35 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early319 flights30.1%
- Within 15 min568 flights53.5%
- 15–29 min late85 flights8.0%
- 30–59 min late54 flights5.1%
- 1–2 hours late21 flights2.0%
- 2+ hours late14 flights1.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,061 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
50 of 192 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 26% of them. 32 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Alaska on SEA to PSP
The latest arrival of the period was on 13 March 2026, 4 hours 44 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 13 March 2026 | 4 hours 44 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 16 March 2026 | 4 hours 33 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 January 2026 | 4 hours 25 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 23 October 2025 | 3 hours 37 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 February 2026 | 3 hours 27 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Alaska runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 42% of the 8,175 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,175 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 23 to one. The split is drawn from 8,175 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,462 of the 8,175 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.65%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.3% 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.
The 987 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 87.3% on time across 1,068 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,071 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 PSP
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,071 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 83.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,061 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to PSP, every carrier
- Alaska on PSP to SEA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on SEA to PSP82.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on SEA to PSP80.3%
- 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 7.05 million flight records
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.