Route reliability record
SNA→SEA
Santa Ana to Seattle
- Flights
- 3,944
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 978 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 3,944 SNA to SEA flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 2,569 at 87.9% on time.
Best time to fly SNA to SEA: a 8pm–5am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 89.8%, against 85.8% for the route overall.
Alaska Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 87.9% on time across 2,569 flights.
Key figures
On time
85.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,895 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.06%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Alaska
87.9% on time across 2,569 flights
These figures cover 3,944 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 SNA to SEA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Alaska Airlines arrives on time 87.9% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 80.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 484 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 2,569 | 87.9% | 48 min | 1.13% | A |
| Delta Air Lines | 891 | 82.7% | 76 min | 1.23% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 484 | 80.0% | 60 min | 0.41% | B+ |
Alaska leads SkyWest by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on SNA to SEA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Santa Ana to Seattle
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ONT → SEAOntario to Seattle | SkyWest Airlines | 91.4% | 91.7% | 0.28% | 2pm–5pm, Sat | OO 4031 17:50 |
| 2. LAX → SEALos Angeles to Seattle | United Airlines | 89.1% | 89.1% | 0.00% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 3. SNA → SEASanta Ana to Seattle | Alaska Airlines | 86.9% | 87.9% | 1.13% | 8pm–5am, Wed | AS 1325 06:45 |
| 4. LAX → SEALos Angeles to Seattle | Delta Air Lines | 84.6% | 85.2% | 0.67% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 2980 07:00 |
| 5. LAX → SEALos Angeles to Seattle | Alaska Airlines | 84.5% | 85.2% | 0.88% | 5am–8am, Mon | AS 1301 18:09 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 18 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am681 flights91.1%
- 8am–11am801 flights91.1%
- 11am–2pm686 flights86.7%
- 2pm–5pm646 flights84.1%
- 5pm–8pm940 flights76.2%
- 8pm–5am190 flights94.0%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is the strongest at 94.0% on time. The full set of windows spans 18 points.
Explore
Filter SNA to SEA 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 SNA to SEA, the best departure window is 8pm–5am at 94.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 76.2%, a wide gap of 17.8 points. All US flights leaving 8pm–5am ran 70.1%.
- 5–8am91.1%
- 8–11am91.1%
- 11am–2pm86.7%
- 2–5pm84.1%
- 5–8pm76.2%
- 8pm–5am94.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
August is the worst month at 77.2% on time, 15 points below November, the best at 92.0%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 369 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 82.1%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 32,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Carrier
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 31,831 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 13,000 of the 32,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.06% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.4% 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 978 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 84.7% on time across 3,945 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 3,944 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SEA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 92.0% on time and August 77.2%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 3,895 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SNA to SEA questions
How often is SNA to SEA delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.2% of the 3,944 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SNA to SEA?
Alaska Airlines leads at 87.9% on time across 2,569 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 80.0%, a gap of 8 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SNA to SEA?
The 8pm–5am departure window is the strongest at 94.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 76.2%, 18 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 August delays on SNA to SEA?
August is the weakest month at 77.2% on time, compared with 92.0% in November. Across the year that is 15 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
- SEA to SNA — the return legseparate record
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on SNA to SEA87.9%
- Delta Air Lines on SNA to SEA82.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on SNA to SEA80.0%
- SNA to SFO, a related route65.5%
- LAX to SEA, a related route85.0%
- SNA to PHX, a related route82.3%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record87.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.0%
- 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. SNA to SEA and SEA to SNA 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.