Alaska Airlines

What the Data Says About Alaska Airlines

Across 1,292,316 flights reported to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics between 2020 and 2025, Alaska Airlines (AS) posted a 80.8% on-time rate, with 248,598 delayed departures and 24,678 cancellations. The carrier's average delay when flights run late is 56.5 minutes, and its cancellation rate of 1.91% sits alongside an overall delay rate of 19.2%. Those baseline numbers frame every comparison you can make with other carriers in the BTS dataset.

Digging into causes, Late Aircraft drives the biggest share of minutes lost, with Late Aircraft accounting for 37.1% of delay time and Carrier contributing 30.9%. Weather, often blamed informally, represents 3.9% of total delay minutes, while National Aviation System constraints such as air traffic control and airspace congestion make up 27.5%. Security delays remain the smallest bucket at 0.6%. Taken together, operational and scheduling factors outweigh weather as the dominant driver of Alaska Airlines delays.

Seasonality matters too. Recent monthly data shows September 2025 as the best period for Alaska Airlines with a 84% on-time rate, while June 2025 was the roughest at 70% on-time, a spread of 14 percentage points between best and worst month. For passengers choosing between carriers, the combination of a 80.8% on-time rate, 56.5-minute average delay, and 1.91% cancellation rate is the clearest summary of what to expect on Alaska Airlines flights based on BTS reporting.