Flight profile · Alaska Airlines
AS439
Houston (IAH) to Seattle (SEA) · scheduled 6:59 PM – 9:53 PM
How AS439 performs
1,092 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
AS439 arrived on time 67.4% of the time, against 77.4% for all IAH → SEA flights, so this departure is 10.0 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against Alaska Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 11.3 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 1,092 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If AS439 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 AS439 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight runs unusually far behind the carrier's own average on this route, worse than 91% of 11,589 comparable flight numbers.
67.4% on time for this specific departure, against 78.7% for the same carrier's other flights on this route.
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 AS439 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 AS439 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AS439 | 67.4% | 1.19% | 1 min | 8.4% | 1,092 |
| Alaska Airlines on IAH → SEA | 78.7% | 1.47% | -5 min | 5.2% | 2,719 |
| All IAH → SEA flights | 77.4% | 1.16% | -4 min | 7.1% | 6,529 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why AS439 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
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
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for AS439 on IAH → SEA. 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 AS439 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, AS439 pushed back an average of 49 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 4 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into IAH just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 1,066 of 1,080 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AS439 | 27% | 94% | 12% |
| 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 AS439’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often AS439 left 15 or more minutes late is higher 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 IAH late, does that still matter by the time it reaches SEA?
AS439 pushes back an average of 16.8 minutes late and reaches the gate at SEA an average of 10.9 minutes late. The 5.9 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. It spends 18.9 minutes on the taxiways at IAH, 2.8 minutes shorter than a typical IAH departure in the same hour.
On arrival at SEA, AS439 spends 12.4 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 about what any arrival at SEA spends on the ground before reaching the gate.
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 SEA. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 46,257 departures from IAH scheduled in the clock hour AS439 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at SEA (510,187 flights), not just AS439’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves IAH
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. AS439 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 46,257 departures from IAH are scheduled in the 6 PM–7 PM hour over the period, against 359,450 across the whole day.
AS439 is scheduled out of IAH at 6:59 PM, in the 6 PM–7 PM bank. Departures from IAH in that hour arrive on time 71.0% of the time against 77.4% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 6.5 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from IAH 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 AS439 run worse on particular days?
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Monday the least, a gap of 8.8 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.
53 min late
against a median of 1 min late
Percentiles over 1,092 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AS453 | Alaska Airlines | 87.0% | 9 min early | 1,104 |
| UA2606 | United Airlines | 80.9% | 4 min early | 638 |
| AS439 this flight | Alaska Airlines | 67.4% | 1 min late | 1,092 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. AS439 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 1,092 records of AS439 operating IAH → SEA, 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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