Route reliability record
TUS→SEA
Tucson to Seattle
- Flights
- 1,065
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,215 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 1,065 TUS to SEA flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 371 at 86.8% on time.
Best time to fly TUS to SEA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.8% of the time and Saturday flights 93.4%, against 85.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 86 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,058 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.66%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
86.8% on time across 371 flights
These figures cover 1,065 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 TUS to SEA
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 138 | 89.0% | 152 min | 1.45% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines | 371 | 86.8% | 72 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 556 | 84.6% | 45 min | 0.90% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 86.8%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on TUS 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 Tucson to Seattle
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. TUS → SEATucson to Seattle | SkyWest Airlines | 86.8% | 86.8% | 0.00% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. TUS → SEATucson to Seattle | Alaska Airlines | 83.8% | 84.6% | 0.90% | 11am–2pm, Sat | AS 641 14:29 |
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 15 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am309 flights91.8%
- 8am–11am55 flights83.6%
- 11am–2pm321 flights90.9%
- 2pm–5pm380 flights77.2%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.8% of the time, against 77.2% for the afternoon window. That is 15 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 380 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TUS 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 TUS to SEA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 77.2%, a wide gap of 14.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.8%
- 8–11am83.6%
- 11am–2pm90.9%
- 2–5pm77.2%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
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 18 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 74.1% on time, against 92.2% 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. May was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 93.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 80.4%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 9,602 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 42%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,602 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 9,602 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,987 of the 9,602 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.66%, 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 3.5% 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 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 82.5% on time across 1,065 flights, 3 points below 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,065 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 SEA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,065 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 85.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,058 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TUS to SEA questions
How often is TUS 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 14.1% of the 1,065 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on TUS to SEA?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 86.8% on time across 371 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 84.6%, a gap of 2 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 TUS to SEA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 77.2%, 15 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 TUS to SEA?
December is the weakest month at 74.1% on time, compared with 92.2% in April. Across the year that is 18 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 TUS — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on TUS to SEA89.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on TUS to SEA86.8%
- Alaska Airlines on TUS to SEA84.6%
- TUS to PHX, a related route83.6%
- LAX to SEA, a related route85.0%
- TUS to DEN, a related route83.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record89.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record86.8%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record84.6%
- 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. TUS to SEA and SEA to TUS 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.