Flight profile · Alaska Airlines
AS16
Seattle (SEA) to New York (JFK) · scheduled 2:40 PM – 10:29 PM
How AS16 performs
1,077 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
AS16 arrived on time 54.5% of the time, against 74.8% for all SEA → JFK flights, so this departure is 20.3 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against Alaska Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 15.9 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 1,077 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If AS16 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
What stands out
How AS16 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight runs unusually far behind the SEA → JFK route as a whole, worse than 97% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.
54.5% on time for this specific departure, against 74.8% for every SEA → JFK flight.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · The one thing about this specific departure that ranks most extreme against every other published flight number, out of everything FlyerIntel checks — shown only when something clears a real statistical bar, not for every flight.
Where AS16 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
Ask for the position of AS16 right now, if receivers on the ground are hearing it. Nothing is requested until you press the button.
Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AS16 | 54.5% | 2.14% | 10 min | 17.3% | 1,077 |
| Alaska Airlines on SEA → JFK | 70.4% | 1.78% | -1 min | 8.3% | 4,223 |
| All SEA → JFK flights | 74.8% | 1.80% | -5 min | 7.6% | 9,123 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why AS16 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for AS16 on SEA → JFK. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies AS16 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, AS16 pushed back an average of 45 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 13 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into SEA just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 983 of 1,054 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| AS16 | 16% | 59% | 22% |
| Network, same turn | 17% | 68% | 9% |
The schedule leaves a normal turn: enough time to clean and board if the aircraft is on time, little to spare if it is not.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 60 to 89 minutes. How often AS16’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often AS16 left 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves SEA late, does that still matter by the time it reaches JFK?
AS16 pushes back an average of 21.2 minutes late and arrives a further 4.1 minutes behind that. This departure loses ground between the two gates rather than recovering it, so a late pushback here tends to get worse on the way, not better. It spends 21.5 minutes on the taxiways at SEA, 1.2 minutes longer than a typical SEA departure in the same hour.
On arrival at JFK, AS16 spends 18.3 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is 6.9 minutes longer than a typical JFK arrival (11.5 min).
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached JFK. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 17,574 departures from SEA scheduled in the clock hour AS16 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at JFK (351,546 flights), not just AS16’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves SEA
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. AS16 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 17,574 departures from SEA are scheduled in the 2 PM–3 PM hour over the period, against 510,205 across the whole day.
AS16 is scheduled out of SEA at 2:40 PM, in the 2 PM–3 PM bank. Departures from SEA in that hour arrive on time 76.8% of the time against 79.1% across the airport’s whole day, so the hour AS16 leaves in is an ordinary one for SEA and explains nothing about its record either way.
The two airport figures cover every departure from SEA to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
By day of week
Does AS16 run worse on particular days?
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 15.0 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Days with fewer than 120 operations are not scored.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
99 min late
against a median of 10 min late
AS16 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 10 min late, but the worst tenth are 89 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 1,077 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL429 | Delta Air Lines | 87.2% | 10 min early | 785 |
| DL452 | Delta Air Lines | 83.6% | 9 min early | 781 |
| AS26 | Alaska Airlines | 78.8% | 5 min early | 965 |
| AS22 | Alaska Airlines | 76.5% | 5 min early | 971 |
| DL415 | Delta Air Lines | 75.0% | 6 min early | 781 |
| AS34 | Alaska Airlines | 72.7% | 1 min early | 1,126 |
| B6264 | JetBlue | 62.6% | 2 min late | 674 |
| AS16 this flight | Alaska Airlines | 54.5% | 10 min late | 1,077 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. AS16 is placed in the same ordering rather than left out of it; the rows around it are the most punctual departures on the route, not all of them, so this is a comparison and not a rank. Schedules change; confirm the departure still operates before booking around this.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,077 records of AS16 operating SEA → JFK, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
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