Carrier route record
ASTUS→SEA
Alaska Airlines · Tucson to Seattle
- 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 TUS to SEA earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 45 minutes. That rests on 556 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Alaska's TUS to SEA record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 73 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 551 completed flights
Avg delay
45 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.90%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
85.9%
Every carrier on TUS to SEA, 1,065 flights
These figures cover 556 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 TUS to SEA
Alaska flew 556 of the 1,065 flights on TUS to SEA, most of the route. Its 84.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 85.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 89.0% to Alaska at 84.6%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 138 | 89.0% | 152 min | 1.45% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines | 371 | 86.8% | 72 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines (this page) | 556 | 84.6% | 45 min | 0.90% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Alaska flight numbers on TUS to SEA
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–8am193 flights92.6%
- 8am–11am27 flights—
- 11am–2pm82 flights93.9%
- 2pm–5pm254 flights74.6%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 93.9% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 74.6%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 254 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Alaska on TUS to SEA through the year
December is the weak month at 70.4% on time, against 100.0% 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, Saturday is the strongest day at 89.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.4%, a spread of 12 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Alaska on TUS to SEA runs when it is late
Alaska on TUS to SEA often beats the schedule: 175 of 551 completed flights, 32%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 45 of the 85 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 14 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early175 flights31.8%
- Within 15 min291 flights52.8%
- 15–29 min late45 flights8.2%
- 30–59 min late26 flights4.7%
- 1–2 hours late7 flights1.3%
- 2+ hours late7 flights1.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 551 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 104 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 35 still arrived on time. 16 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Alaska on TUS to SEA
The latest arrival of the period was on 23 October 2025, 7 hours 24 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 23 October 2025 | 7 hours 24 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 November 2025 | 3 hours 43 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 July 2026 | 3 hours 11 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 January 2026 | 2 hours 29 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 16 July 2026 | 2 hours 23 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Alaska runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 3,813 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 3,813 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 55 to one. The split is drawn from 3,813 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.90% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.5% 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 78.5% on time across 556 flights, 6 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 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 TUS to SEA
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 84.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 551 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- TUS to SEA, every carrier
- Alaska on SEA to TUS, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on TUS to SEA89.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on TUS to SEA86.8%
- 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.