Route profile
BUR→SEA
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Burbank to Seattle, 937 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 66% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 4,923 flights. How this is calculated
BUR → SEA arrives on time 81.4% of the time; the return trip, SEA → BUR, arrives on time 76.9% of the time, a 4.5-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
BUR → SEA spends 32.1 minutes on the ground on a 937-mile trip: 20.5 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at BUR and 11.6 minutes from touchdown to gate at SEA.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What sets this route apart
Where BUR to SEA differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
BUR to SEA is at its best against routes of similar length for flights scheduled at 8 PM: 79.7% arrive on time, 13.2 points ahead of the 66.5% those routes manage at that hour. Against all other routes the gap is 12.3 points.
BUR to SEA holds up on Wednesdays better than routes of similar length do: 85.9% on time to their 80.1%, a 5.8 points lead. Against all other routes the gap is 5.1 points.
July is kinder to BUR to SEA than to routes of similar length: 77.6% on time against 68.4%, 9.2 points better. Against all other routes the gap is 7.9 points.
BUR to SEA against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 8 PM departures | 79.7% | routes of similar length | 66.5% | +13.2 pts | 463 here, 146,967 there |
| Weekday: Wednesday | 85.9% | routes of similar length | 80.1% | +5.8 pts | 644 here, 404,106 there |
| Month: July | 77.6% | routes of similar length | 68.4% | +9.2 pts | 590 here, 325,252 there |
Each comparison pools the flights of other routes, with this route’s own left out. Similar length means within 15% of this route’s 937 miles, with at least 5 such routes. A bucket is set against the most comparable group that has enough flights: similar length, then the same origin (at least 3 routes), then all other routes. Hours, weekdays and months appear only where both sides have 120 completed flights, and airlines where both have 600. The gap must be at least 2 points and 2 standard errors, and only the largest gap each way is kept per measure. These are differences in the flights counted, not causes.
Why BUR → SEA flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
BUR → SEA cancelled 93 of 4,923 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 53. The reason filed most often was the airline, 84.9% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 62 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 93 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
79 cancellations, 84.9% of the total.
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
12 cancellations, 12.9% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
2 cancellations, 2.2% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. With only one or two carriers on the route, the split mostly reflects how they file. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
93 coded cancellations were recorded on BUR → SEA; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
32 min late
against a median of 6 min early
Percentiles over 4,923 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at SEA after arriving from BUR.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 36% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 18% | High risk |
| 60 min | 10% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 4.4% | Low risk |
| 120 min | 2.4% | Low risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 1.89% of the time and diverts 0.77% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 4,792 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 32 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 4,923 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
BUR → SEA flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 87.3% of the time, against 75.0% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 12.3 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 6 AM: too few flights to score
- 7 AM: 87.3% on time from 1,115 flights
- 8 AM to 9 AM: too few flights to score
- 10 AM: 87.1% on time from 498 flights
- 11 AM: 87.9% on time from 374 flights
- 12 PM: 86.1% on time from 205 flights
- 1 PM: 78.1% on time from 464 flights
- 2 PM: 75.1% on time from 327 flights
- 3 PM: too few flights to score
- 4 PM: 78.4% on time from 534 flights
- 5 PM: 75.8% on time from 231 flights
- 6 PM: 77.1% on time from 165 flights
- 7 PM: 67.9% on time from 359 flights
- 8 PM: 79.7% on time from 470 flights
- 9 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why BUR → SEA runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
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 BUR → SEA. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on BUR → SEA, at 55.4%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 87.3% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 75.0%.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 4,890 | 81.4% | 1.88% | -7 min | 4.6% |
Other ways to fly Los Angeles to Seattle
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
LAX → SEA is the most reliable pairing for this journey at 84.8% on time, against 81.4% for BUR → SEA.
Flying to SEA from the Los Angeles area? Compare BUR, LAX, SNA, ONT for SEA, with the same test for what counts as a real difference.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Thursday the least, a gap of 8.2 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 84.3%
- Feb: 88.5%
- Mar: 80.8%
- Apr: 84.9%
- May: 76.2%
- Jun: 74.5%
- Jul: 77.6%
- Aug: 77.4%
- Sep: 84.9%
- Oct: 86.8%
- Nov: 84.1%
- Dec: 81.6%
June is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 14.0 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 81.3% from 124 flights
- August 2023: 81.1% from 124 flights
- September 2023: 87.4% from 145 flights
- October 2023: 91.0% from 150 flights
- November 2023: 87.0% from 142 flights
- December 2023: 80.3% from 139 flights
- January 2024: too few flights to score (117)
- February 2024: too few flights to score (104)
- March 2024: 70.2% from 124 flights
- April 2024: 88.6% from 124 flights
- May 2024: 67.8% from 120 flights
- June 2024: 70.0% from 133 flights
- July 2024: 73.3% from 155 flights
- August 2024: 75.7% from 143 flights
- September 2024: 76.2% from 150 flights
- October 2024: 88.7% from 126 flights
- November 2024: 88.5% from 124 flights
- December 2024: 83.1% from 131 flights
- January 2025: too few flights to score (116)
- February 2025: too few flights to score (99)
- March 2025: 87.3% from 129 flights
- April 2025: 78.2% from 148 flights
- May 2025: 75.2% from 148 flights
- June 2025: 68.3% from 142 flights
- July 2025: 73.0% from 149 flights
- August 2025: 75.7% from 140 flights
- September 2025: 92.0% from 127 flights
- October 2025: 80.0% from 131 flights
- November 2025: 76.6% from 127 flights
- December 2025: 81.4% from 143 flights
- January 2026: too few flights to score (110)
- February 2026: too few flights to score (94)
- March 2026: 85.2% from 123 flights
- April 2026: 88.9% from 136 flights
- May 2026: 84.6% from 142 flights
- June 2026: 83.6% from 164 flights
- July 2026: 82.4% from 180 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 83.9% against 79.8% in the 12 months before — improving by 4.1 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 4,923 BUR → SEA flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed