The sector is held by Alaska Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines.
Airport pair · hand carry reference
PHL Philadelphia to SEA Seattle
Philadelphia International, the United States, to Seattle Tacoma International, the United States. Computed from the scheduled network held on 2026-09-07.
- Nonstop
- 6.3 times a day
- Great circle
- 3,818 km
- Block, estimated
- 5h 06m
- Door to door
- 11h 51m
What PHL to SEA looks like
The PHL to SEA sector, the carriers on it and the flying time, before anything is promised to anybody.
Philadelphia PHL to Seattle SEA is a long haul sector of 3,818 km by great circle, flown nonstop 6.3 times a day.
At the cruise speed this site models for 3,818 km, 880 km an hour, and thirty minutes of taxi at the two ends, the flight blocks at about 5h 06m.
Philadelphia PHL is a major hub in the network held here, 171 scheduled destinations and 527.5 departures a day. Seattle SEA has 145 destinations and 717.9 departures a day.
Seattle is 3 hours behind of Philadelphia all year.
The pair sits inside the Americas, a corridor where the site already publishes 13 written lanes that go into customs and ground detail this page does not.
Who flies the sector, and how often
Average daily frequencies on PHL to SEA from the scheduled route statistics, both directions, with the operating carriers named.
| Direction | Flights a day | Flights a week | Operated by |
|---|---|---|---|
| PHL to SEA | 6.29 | 44 | Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines |
| SEA to PHL | 6.14 | 43 | Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines |
3 carriers are recorded on the sector, so a missed departure is normally a rebooking rather than a lost day.
At 6.3 times a day there is usually another departure within a few hours, which is what makes a same day booking on this pair realistic.
Between them the two directions put about 87 departures a week on PHL 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 5h 06m block time on PHL 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 PHL | 90 min | 1h 30m |
| At PHL before departure | 180 min | 4h 30m |
| PHL to SEA in the air, estimated | 306 min | 9h 36m |
| Formalities at SEA | 90 min | 11h 06m |
| Delivery run in Seattle | 45 min | 11h 51m |
| Door to door | 711 min | 11h 51m |
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 PHL to SEA is 11h 51m.
A courier who leaves Philadelphia at 09:00 local is on the ground in Seattle at about 11:06 local and at the door by 13:21 the same day.
Working backwards from a six in the evening handover in Seattle, the last useful departure from Philadelphia is around 13:39 local.
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. 49 of them join PHL to SEA.
| Connecting at | PHL to hub, flights a day | Hub to SEA, flights a day | Track, km | Estimated, gate to gate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Milwaukee MKE | 3.43 | 2.14 | 3,827 | 6h 53m |
| Cleveland CLE | 6 | 2.29 | 3,827 | 7h 00m |
| Washington DC DCA | 2.86 | 3.57 | 3,930 | 7h 02m |
| Detroit DTW | 10.86 | 8.14 | 3,821 | 7h 03m |
| Toronto YYZ | 8.86 | 2.29 | 3,865 | 7h 03m |
| Columbus CMH | 6.29 | 2.29 | 3,888 | 7h 07m |
With 6.3 times a day on the nonstop, a connection here is a disruption plan rather than a routing, and it is listed because a closed runway or a cancellation wave is exactly when nobody has time to work it out.
49 airports connect the two ends on the scheduled network held here. The quickest of the dependable ones is Milwaukee MKE, where the weaker of the two legs still runs about twice a day.
Through MKE the routing covers 3,827 km against the 3,818 km nonstop track and takes about 6h 53m 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 47m more than the nonstop, which is close enough that a connection is worth taking when the nonstop is full or badly timed.
Behind it, Cleveland CLE at 7h 00m and Washington DC DCA at 7h 02m hold the same connection, so a booking has three hubs to try before it has to wait for the nonstop.
If nothing suitable leaves Philadelphia, Newark EWR is 129 km away by great circle and carries 201 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.
Industry within reach of the two ends
Public manufacturing and research sites whose logistics run through PHL or SEA. Listed as industrial geography, not as customers of anyone.
- 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 Philadelphia 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 PHL 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 PHL airport entry
- The SEA airport entry
- Hand carry into the United States
- The written lane, Dubai to Seattle
- The written lane, Seattle to Nagoya
- The route calculator
More pairs through PHL and SEA: Atlanta to Philadelphia, Boston to Philadelphia, Philadelphia to Detroit, Miami to Philadelphia, Houston to Philadelphia, Philadelphia to Phoenix, Philadelphia to Montreal, Charlotte to Philadelphia.