Carrier route record

ASSEA→TUS

Alaska Airlines · Seattle to Tucson

Flights: 556
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 52%
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 TUS lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 35 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 556 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Alaska on SEA to TUS from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

80.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 553 completed flights

Avg delay

37 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.54%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

81.8%

Every carrier on SEA to TUS, 1,065 flights

These figures cover 556 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

Alaska against every carrier on SEA to TUS

Alaska flew 556 of the 1,065 flights on SEA to TUS, most of the route. Its 80.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 81.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 83.8% to Alaska at 80.5%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on SEA to TUS
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Linesthin sample	138	83.8%	73 min	1.45%	B
SkyWest Airlines	371	83.0%	52 min	0.00%	B+
Alaska Airlines (this page)	556	80.5%	37 min	0.54%	B+

Flight by flight

Alaska flight numbers on SEA to TUS

AS 64811:3780.7% · 359 flights

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 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am—
8am–11am165 flights92.1%
11am–2pm194 flights71.0%
2pm–5pm6 flights—
5pm–8pm47 flights89.4%
8pm–5am144 flights76.8%

Scale runs 65% to 100%. 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 71.0% on time against 92.1% 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 194 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Alaska on SEA to TUS through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.August best, December worst

December is the weak month at 57.4% on time, against 96.8% in August. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 60 flights.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 86.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.2%. 16 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. Carrier accounts for 51% of the 4,017 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.

Carrier
51%
Late-arriving aircraft
36%
National Airspace System
13%

36% 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 4,017 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 36 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 4,017 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, 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 2,032 of the 4,017 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.54%, 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 2.4% 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.

The 1,215 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 86.2% on time across 556 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 556 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 TUS

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 556 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 80.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 553 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures