Route reliability record
SEA→RNO
Seattle to Reno
- Flights
- 904
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 564 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average. That rests on 904 SEA to RNO flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly SEA to RNO: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 90.2%, against 79.6% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 894 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.88%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Alaska
78.1% on time across 791 flights
These figures cover 904 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 RNO
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 Airlinesthin sample | 113 | 90.2% | 68 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 791 | 78.1% | 45 min | 1.01% | B |
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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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am16 flights—
- 8am–11am224 flights87.7%
- 11am–2pm265 flights75.3%
- 2pm–5pm30 flights—
- 5pm–8pm106 flights75.5%
- 8pm–5am263 flights78.5%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. 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 75.3% on time against 87.7% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 265 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SEA to RNO 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 RNO, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 87.7% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 75.3%, a wide gap of 12.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am87.7%
- 11am–2pm75.3%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm75.5%
- 8pm–5am78.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
December is the weak month at 64.8% on time, against 90.0% in April. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 116 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 68.4%, a spread of 22 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 8,484 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,484 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 to one. The split is drawn from 8,484 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,285 of the 8,484 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.88%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% 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 564 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 runs 76.7% on time across 905 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 904 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 RNO after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 904 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 79.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 894 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SEA to RNO questions
How often is SEA to RNO delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.4% of the 904 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is SEA to RNO compared with the rest of the country?
79.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SEA to RNO?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.7% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 75.3%, 12 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 December delays on SEA to RNO?
December is the weakest month at 64.8% on time, compared with 90.0% in April. Across the year that is 25 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
- RNO to SEA — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on SEA to RNO90.2%
- Alaska Airlines on SEA to RNO78.1%
- SEA to LAX, a related route82.0%
- LAS to RNO, a related route78.9%
- SEA to PHX, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record90.2%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record78.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. SEA to RNO and RNO 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.