OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

Washington to Seattle

2,306 miData through Dec 2025Source: US DOT · BTS

Flights on IAD–SEA arrive on time 77% of the time over the last 12 months.

On-time rate77%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay40 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled0.6%of scheduled flights

based on 1,871 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

By airline

How each carrier compares

  • Alaska Airlines
    On-time73%
    Medianon time
    p9050 min
    Cancel0.8%
    Flights832
  • United Airlines
    On-time79%
    Medianon time
    p9035 min
    Cancel0.5%
    Flights733
  • Delta Air Linesbest
    On-time86%
    Medianon time
    p9020 min
    Cancel0.3%
    Flights306

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline38%
  • Weather12%
  • Air traffic (NAS)26%
  • Late aircraft24%
  • Security1%

Most delay minutes here are attributed to Airline.

Over time

On-time trend

By season

On-time rate by month

When to fly

Best time to fly IAD → SEA

All airlines · rolling 36 months (2023-01 .. 2025-12).

Best time of day

Middays are the most reliable time of day to fly this route — 92% on time.

  • Middays92% on time · p90 5 min · 436 flights
  • Mornings85% on time · p90 20 min · 2,719 flights
  • Afternoons81% on time · p90 25 min · 167 flights · limited
  • Evenings73% on time · p90 50 min · 2,861 flights
  • Overnights69% on time · p90 50 min · 268 flights

Best day of week

On-time rates are fairly even by day on this route — ranging from 77% to 83% on time.

  • Tuesdays83% on time · p90 25 min · 893 flights
  • Wednesdays81% on time · p90 30 min · 902 flights
  • Fridays79% on time · p90 40 min · 951 flights
  • Thursdays79% on time · p90 35 min · 941 flights
  • Saturdays78% on time · p90 30 min · 872 flights
  • Mondays78% on time · p90 35 min · 951 flights
  • Sundays77% on time · p90 40 min · 941 flights
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Keep exploring

Related pages

Methodology

A flight is on time when it arrives within 15 minutes of schedule — the US DOT / BTS standard. Median and p90(the “1-in-10 bad day”) are read from the full arrival-delay distribution, never averaged across periods.

Figures cover a carrier’s own BTS-coded flights. Cells below ~200 flights are flagged as limited data. All numbers are pre-computed from public BTS On-Time Performance data.