Route profile
SEA→BUR
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Seattle to Burbank, 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 56% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 4,928 flights. How this is calculated
SEA → BUR arrives on time 76.9% of the time; the return trip, BUR → SEA, arrives on time 81.4% of the time, a 4.5-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
SEA → BUR spends 27.1 minutes on the ground on a 937-mile trip: 20.4 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at SEA and 6.7 minutes from touchdown to gate at BUR.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What sets this route apart
Where SEA to BUR differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
SEA to BUR is at its best against routes of similar length for flights scheduled at 4 PM: 79.5% arrive on time, 11.1 points ahead of the 68.4% those routes manage at that hour. Against all other routes the gap is 8.8 points.
SEA to BUR struggles most at 10 AM: 75.9% of its flights scheduled then arrive on time, 7 points behind the 82.9% on routes of similar length at the same hour. Against all other routes the gap is 6.8 points.
Alaska Airlines’ flights on SEA to BUR arrive on time 76.8% of the time, 5.1 points below the 81.9% it manages on its routes of similar length.
SEA to BUR against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 4 PM departures | 79.5% | routes of similar length | 68.4% | +11.1 pts | 132 here, 156,839 there |
| Hour: 10 AM departures | 75.9% | routes of similar length | 82.9% | −7.0 pts | 465 here, 168,245 there |
| Airline: Alaska Airlines | 76.8% | routes of similar length | 81.9% | −5.1 pts | 4,786 here, 142,077 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 SEA → BUR flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
SEA → BUR cancelled 87 of 4,928 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 57. The reason filed most often was the airline, 89.7% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 63 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 87 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.
78 cancellations, 89.7% of the total.
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
7 cancellations, 8.0% 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, 2.3% 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.
87 coded cancellations were recorded on SEA → BUR; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
37 min late
against a median of 3 min early
Percentiles over 4,928 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at BUR after arriving from SEA.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 43% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 22% | High risk |
| 60 min | 12% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 4.5% | Low risk |
| 120 min | 1.9% | 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 1.77% of the time and diverts 0.47% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 4,818 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 37 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 4,928 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
SEA → BUR flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 88.9% of the time, against 67.1% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 21.8 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 90.8% on time from 453 flights
- 7 AM: 86.3% on time from 170 flights
- 8 AM: 87.9% on time from 425 flights
- 9 AM: 83.1% on time from 373 flights
- 10 AM: 75.9% on time from 470 flights
- 11 AM: 75.4% on time from 123 flights
- 12 PM: 77.4% on time from 322 flights
- 1 PM: 74.7% on time from 413 flights
- 2 PM: 73.5% on time from 121 flights
- 3 PM: 68.5% on time from 388 flights
- 4 PM: 79.5% on time from 133 flights
- 5 PM: 77.7% on time from 525 flights
- 6 PM: too few flights to score
- 7 PM: 67.1% on time from 1,010 flights
- 8 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why SEA → BUR runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow 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 SEA → BUR. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
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 | 4,895 | 76.8% | 1.76% | -3 min | 4.6% |
Other ways to fly Seattle to Los Angeles
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
SEA → SNA is the most reliable pairing for this journey at 85.3% on time, against 76.9% for SEA → BUR.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 8.6 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 76.3%
- Feb: 78.0%
- Mar: 75.3%
- Apr: 83.5%
- May: 75.7%
- Jun: 71.0%
- Jul: 70.3%
- Aug: 71.9%
- Sep: 82.4%
- Oct: 83.9%
- Nov: 82.7%
- Dec: 75.9%
July is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 13.6 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 78.2% from 124 flights
- August 2023: 74.6% from 124 flights
- September 2023: 86.7% from 144 flights
- October 2023: 84.0% from 150 flights
- November 2023: 81.0% from 142 flights
- December 2023: 82.0% from 139 flights
- January 2024: too few flights to score (117)
- February 2024: too few flights to score (104)
- March 2024: 64.5% from 124 flights
- April 2024: 78.2% from 124 flights
- May 2024: 72.3% from 120 flights
- June 2024: 65.9% from 133 flights
- July 2024: 72.8% from 155 flights
- August 2024: 71.6% from 143 flights
- September 2024: 69.4% from 150 flights
- October 2024: 81.1% from 126 flights
- November 2024: 83.9% from 124 flights
- December 2024: 76.9% from 131 flights
- January 2025: too few flights to score (116)
- February 2025: too few flights to score (100)
- March 2025: 74.4% from 129 flights
- April 2025: 81.6% from 148 flights
- May 2025: 74.1% from 148 flights
- June 2025: 69.8% from 142 flights
- July 2025: 63.8% from 149 flights
- August 2025: 69.9% from 140 flights
- September 2025: 92.8% from 127 flights
- October 2025: 86.4% from 133 flights
- November 2025: 83.6% from 127 flights
- December 2025: 69.0% from 144 flights
- January 2026: too few flights to score (111)
- February 2026: too few flights to score (94)
- March 2026: 87.4% from 123 flights
- April 2026: 90.4% from 136 flights
- May 2026: 80.3% from 143 flights
- June 2026: 76.1% from 164 flights
- July 2026: 67.6% from 180 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 80.2% against 75.1% in the 12 months before — improving by 5.1 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 4,928 SEA → BUR 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