The sector is held by Delta Air Lines.
Airport pair · hand carry reference
AMS Amsterdam to SEA Seattle
Amsterdam Schiphol, the Netherlands, to Seattle Tacoma International, the United States. Computed from the scheduled network held on 2026-09-07.
- Nonstop
- About twice a day
- Great circle
- 7,840 km
- Block, estimated
- 9h 57m
- Door to door
- 16h 42m
What AMS to SEA looks like
The AMS to SEA sector, the carriers on it and the flying time, before anything is promised to anybody.
Amsterdam AMS to Seattle SEA is an ultra long sector of 7,840 km by great circle, flown nonstop about twice a day.
At the cruise speed this site models for 7,840 km, 880 km an hour, and thirty minutes of taxi at the two ends, the flight blocks at about 9h 57m.
Amsterdam AMS is a major hub in the network held here, 281 scheduled destinations and 743.4 departures a day. Seattle SEA has 145 destinations and 717.9 departures a day.
Seattle is 9 hours behind of Amsterdam all year.
The pair sits between the Americas and Europe, a corridor where the site already publishes 36 written lanes that go into customs and ground detail this page does not.
Who flies the sector, and how often
Average daily frequencies on AMS to SEA from the scheduled route statistics, both directions, with the operating carriers named.
| Direction | Flights a day | Flights a week | Operated by |
|---|---|---|---|
| AMS to SEA | 2.43 | 17 | Delta Air Lines |
| SEA to AMS | 2.29 | 16 | Delta Air Lines |
One carrier holds the sector, Delta Air Lines, so a cancellation has no second nonstop behind it and the connections below stop being theoretical.
Between them the two directions put about 33 departures a week on AMS to SEA, which is the number that decides whether a seat can be found today or on Thursday.
The clock from collection to signature
The same ground timings the route calculator starts from, applied to the 9h 57m block time on AMS to SEA. Change any of them in the tool further down and the total moves with them.
| Stage | Allowed | Elapsed |
|---|---|---|
| Collection and the run to AMS | 90 min | 1h 30m |
| At AMS before departure | 180 min | 4h 30m |
| AMS to SEA in the air, estimated | 597 min | 14h 27m |
| Formalities at SEA | 90 min | 15h 57m |
| Delivery run in Seattle | 45 min | 16h 42m |
| Door to door | 1,002 min | 16h 42m |
On the desk standard ground timings, ninety minutes to collect and reach the airport, three hours at the airport before departure, ninety minutes of arrival formalities and a forty five minute delivery run, the door to door figure for AMS to SEA is 16h 42m.
A courier who leaves Amsterdam at 09:00 local is on the ground in Seattle at about 09:57 local and at the door by 12:12 the same day.
Working backwards from a six in the evening handover in Seattle, the last useful departure from Amsterdam is around 14:48 local.
At 16h 42m the mission is past the sixteen hour duty day a single courier is planned against, so it is quoted with a rest at the far end or with a second courier, and never as a turnaround.
When the nonstop does not work
Every airport that joins the two ends, ranked by when they land, among the ones whose weaker leg is dependable enough to plan on. Connection time is allowed for the size of the hub. 44 of them join AMS to SEA.
| Connecting at | AMS to hub, flights a day | Hub to SEA, flights a day | Track, km | Estimated, gate to gate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edmonton YEG | 0.86 | 1.71 | 7,852 | 11h 32m |
| Reykjavik KEF | 3.14 | 4.29 | 7,849 | 11h 36m |
| Vancouver YVR | 1.14 | 14.86 | 7,912 | 11h 50m |
| Calgary YYC | 1.14 | 6.71 | 7,894 | 11h 57m |
| Dublin DUB | 14.14 | 1.14 | 8,033 | 12h 07m |
| Portland PDX | 1 | 22.43 | 8,237 | 12h 13m |
One nonstop a day means one chance a day, so the connections below are what a consignment that arrives at AMS in the afternoon actually flies on.
44 airports connect the two ends on the scheduled network held here. The quickest of the dependable ones is Edmonton YEG, where the weaker of the two legs still runs 6 times a week.
Through YEG the routing covers 7,852 km against the 7,840 km nonstop track and takes about 11h 32m in the air and on the ground at the hub, allowing 60 minutes to connect at an airport of that size.
That is only 1h 35m more than the nonstop, which is close enough that a connection is worth taking when the nonstop is full or badly timed.
Behind it, Reykjavik KEF at 11h 36m and Vancouver YVR at 11h 50m hold the same connection, so a booking has three hubs to try before it has to wait for the nonstop.
If nothing suitable leaves Amsterdam, Rotterdam RTM is 45 km away by great circle and carries 62 scheduled destinations of its own, which is usually a shorter road transfer than a lost day.
If nothing suitable leaves Seattle, Victoria YYJ is 157 km away by great circle and carries 22 scheduled destinations of its own, which is usually a shorter road transfer than a lost day.
Restricted hours at either end
Widely documented operating restrictions, checked 2026-09-07. Exemptions and seasonal variations exist, so confirm with the carrier before relying on any of them.
Amsterdam AMS is shut to scheduled movements between 23:00 and 07:00 local, so a collection in Amsterdam that runs late does not simply catch a later flight, it waits for the morning and loses a working day in Seattle.
Amsterdam AMS, night restrictions: Night operations between 23:00 and 07:00 local are limited by an annual cap and runway rules.
Industry within reach of the two ends
Public manufacturing and research sites whose logistics run through AMS or SEA. Listed as industrial geography, not as customers of anyone.
- ASML, VeldhovenLithography systems, including the only extreme ultraviolet machines in production. A single reticle or optic can hold up a fab on another continent. Logistics through Amsterdam AMS.
- Johnson and Johnson, Beerse and LeidenPharmaceutical research and vaccine production. Two low country sites, two gates. Logistics through Amsterdam AMS.
- ASM Pacific and Besi, Duiven and SingaporeSemiconductor assembly equipment. Back end equipment feeding Asian assembly plants. Logistics through Amsterdam AMS.
- Boeing, Everett and RentonWidebody and 737 final assembly. A European supplier base and an American line, eight time zones apart. Logistics through Seattle SEA.
Plan Amsterdam to Seattle yourself
The same tool the dispatchers use, open to anybody and free. It is loaded with this pair already. Change either end, add a stopover or a preferred airline, and it works out the connection, the transit and the door to door clock, with the real departures underneath. Put it on your own site if it is useful to you.
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Restrictions
Where this came from, and where to look next
- Carriers and frequencies: AeroDataBox scheduled route statistics, retrieved 2026-09-07. Average daily flights, not a timetable.
- Distances: great circle from published coordinates. They read short against a flown track, which is why the block time above applies a factor to them.
- Block and connection times: the same model the route calculator lower down this page runs, at the same rounding.
- Restrictions: the airport notes file, checked 2026-09-07.
- Industrial sites: public company information. Nothing here says or implies that any company named is a customer of any courier operator.
Who publishes this. OnBoard Courier is a placement desk in Dubai. An assignment is carried out by a vetted partner operator, with the desk as the single point of contact from the quote to the signature. This page exists because our own dispatchers need the answer for AMS to SEA in the twenty minutes before a promise is made, and a reference only one operator can read is not a reference. Free to read, quote and cite. Found an error? Tell us and we will correct it.
If you need something moved rather than looked up, the desk prices a hand carry in fifteen minutes.
- The AMS airport entry
- The SEA airport entry
- Hand carry into the Netherlands
- Hand carry into the United States
- The written lane, Abu Dhabi to Amsterdam
- The written lane, Amsterdam to Bangalore
- The written lane, Amsterdam to Detroit
- The route calculator
More pairs through AMS and SEA: Amsterdam to London, Amsterdam to Barcelona, Madrid to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Paris, Dublin to Amsterdam, Frankfurt to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Copenhagen, Munich to Amsterdam.