Flight profile · Alaska Airlines
AS85
Seattle (SEA) to Anchorage (ANC) · scheduled 7:00 AM – 9:40 AM
How AS85 performs
783 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
AS85 arrived on time 87.3% of the time, against 75.8% for all SEA → ANC flights, so this departure is 11.5 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against Alaska Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 13.2 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 783 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If AS85 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 AS85 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight runs unusually far ahead of the carrier's own average on this route, better than 97% of 11,589 comparable flight numbers.
87.3% on time for this specific departure, against 74.1% 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 AS85 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 AS85 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AS85 | 87.3% | 2.30% | -8 min | 1.8% | 783 |
| Alaska Airlines on SEA → ANC | 74.1% | 0.88% | 0 min | 4.5% | 17,131 |
| All SEA → ANC flights | 75.8% | 0.74% | -2 min | 4.5% | 22,363 |
AS85 has cancelled 2.30% of its scheduled departures (18 of 783), against 0.74% for all SEA → ANC flights — this specific departure cancels 1.6 percentage points more often than the route as a whole. Different flight numbers on the same route can carry different aircraft, crews and schedules, so this is a fact about AS85 specifically, not about the route it flies.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why AS85 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
screening or terminal security incidents
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for AS85 on SEA → ANC. 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 AS85 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
AS85 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 8.1 hours on the ground at SEA, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, AS85 pushed back an average of 3 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 0 minutes early.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into SEA just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 689 of 765 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AS85 | 26% | 15% | 8% |
| Network, same turn | 29% | 12% | 9% |
A night on the ground absorbs most of a late arrival, so a late inbound matters far less on a turn this long than on a same-day one.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 6 hours or more, usually overnight. How often AS85’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often AS85 left 15 or more minutes late is about the same as 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 ANC?
AS85 pushes back an average of 1.5 minutes late and reaches the gate at ANC an average of 3.9 minutes early. The 5.4 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 20.6 minutes on the taxiways at SEA, 3.1 minutes shorter than a typical SEA departure in the same hour.
On arrival at ANC, AS85 spends 5.3 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 about what any arrival at ANC 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 ANC. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 42,963 departures from SEA scheduled in the clock hour AS85 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at ANC (58,786 flights), not just AS85’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. AS85 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 42,963 departures from SEA are scheduled in the 7 AM–8 AM hour over the period, against 510,205 across the whole day.
AS85 is scheduled out of SEA at 7:00 AM, in the 7 AM–8 AM bank. Departures from SEA in that hour arrive on time 85.0% of the time against 79.1% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 5.9 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
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.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
19 min late
against a median of 8 min early
Percentiles over 783 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AS85 this flight | Alaska Airlines | 87.3% | 8 min early | 783 |
| DL922 | Delta Air Lines | 85.6% | 7 min early | 785 |
| DL928 | Delta Air Lines | 80.4% | 7 min early | 783 |
| AS189 | Alaska Airlines | 78.2% | 2 min early | 738 |
| AS131 | Alaska Airlines | 77.5% | 3 min early | 800 |
| AS99 | Alaska Airlines | 76.3% | 4 min early | 628 |
| DL936 | Delta Air Lines | 75.9% | 2 min early | 684 |
| DL931 | Delta Air Lines | 75.7% | 5 min early | 605 |
| AS83 | Alaska Airlines | 73.2% | 1 min early | 1,008 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. AS85 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 783 records of AS85 operating SEA → ANC, 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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