Carrier route record
ASSEA→TUS
Alaska Airlines · Seattle to Tucson
- Flights
- 556
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 52%
- 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 TUS lands a B+, about a point 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 40 minutes on average. That rests on 556 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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.
Key figures
On time
78.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 553 completed flights
Avg delay
38 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.54%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
82.5%
Every carrier on SEA to TUS, 1,065 flights
These figures cover 556 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 TUS
Alaska flew 556 of the 1,065 flights on SEA to TUS, most of the route. Its 78.5% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 82.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 88.1% to Alaska at 78.5%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 371 | 88.1% | 62 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 138 | 83.8% | 73 min | 1.45% | B |
| Alaska Airlines (this page) | 556 | 78.5% | 38 min | 0.54% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Alaska flight numbers on SEA to TUS
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 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am152 flights87.5%
- 11am–2pm207 flights70.4%
- 2pm–5pm6 flights—
- 5pm–8pm47 flights89.4%
- 8pm–5am144 flights76.8%
Scale runs 60% 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 70.4% on time against 89.4% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 207 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Alaska on SEA to TUS through the year
December is the weak month at 57.4% on time, against 96.7% in September. 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.7%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Alaska on SEA to TUS runs when it is late
Alaska on SEA to TUS often beats the schedule: 139 of 553 completed flights, 25%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 62 of the 119 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 15 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early139 flights25.1%
- Within 15 min295 flights53.3%
- 15–29 min late62 flights11.2%
- 30–59 min late42 flights7.6%
- 1–2 hours late10 flights1.8%
- 2+ hours late5 flights0.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 553 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
38 of 136 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 28% of them. 21 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Alaska on SEA to TUS
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 July 2026, 3 hours 29 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 5 July 2026 | 3 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 December 2025 | 2 hours 21 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 16 July 2026 | 2 hours 11 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 26 January 2026 | 2 hours 6 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 May 2026 | 2 hours 1 minute | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Alaska runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 51% of the 4,549 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,328 of the 4,549 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,549 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.54%, 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 2.7% 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 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.6% 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 78.5% 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.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to TUS, every carrier
- Alaska on TUS to SEA, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on SEA to TUS88.1%
- Delta Air Lines on SEA to TUS83.8%
- 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.