Portland, OR · departure reliability

PDX

Portland International

Departures: 63,784
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Carriers: 7
US rank: #31 by volume

Terminal building and aircraft stands at a US airport

Portland

Portland International lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 63,784 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 7,151 at 90.1% on time.

Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the seven carriers covered here at 90.1% on time across 7,151 flights.

On time

82.5%

Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination

Avg delay

60 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

0.74%

National rate is 1.89%

Best carrier

Delta

90.1% on time here

These figures cover 64,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Carrier by carrier

Which airlines run best out of PDX

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 90.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 75.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 8,585 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier departing PDX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Alaska Airlines	24,677	83.0%	46 min	0.66%	B+
SkyWest Airlines	10,587	85.3%	64 min	0.55%	A+
Southwest Airlines	8,585	75.7%	48 min	0.33%	B+
Delta Air Lines	7,151	90.1%	74 min	1.08%	A
United Airlines	6,624	80.6%	65 min	0.59%	B+
American Airlines	4,484	81.3%	111 min	1.83%	B
Frontier Airlines	799	79.6%	78 min	1.25%	B

The spread between Delta and Southwest is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

Route by route

Busiest routes out of PDX

Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from PDX, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 82.5%.

Busiest routes from PDX by flight volume
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
PDX to SEA · Seattle	4,927	84.9%	54 min	0.71%	B+
PDX to LAX · Los Angeles	4,287	86.6%	72 min	0.61%	A+
PDX to DEN · Denver	4,280	82.3%	55 min	0.37%	B+
PDX to PHX · Phoenix	3,768	79.4%	74 min	0.45%	B+
PDX to SFO · San Francisco	3,495	66.8%	57 min	0.37%	C+
PDX to LAS · Las Vegas	2,934	79.9%	54 min	0.55%	B+
PDX to ORD · Chicago	2,814	79.2%	76 min	1.00%	B
PDX to SLC · Salt Lake City	2,383	89.1%	64 min	1.09%	A
PDX to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	2,327	82.5%	98 min	2.28%	B
PDX to SMF · Sacramento	1,962	82.3%	52 min	0.31%	B+
PDX to SAN · San Diego	1,833	74.3%	37 min	0.71%	C+
PDX to SJC · San Jose	1,702	81.8%	53 min	0.35%	B+
PDX to MSP · Minneapolis	1,577	91.4%	59 min	0.57%	A+
PDX to ATL · Atlanta	1,544	88.4%	52 min	0.91%	A+
PDX to SNA · Santa Ana	1,543	90.9%	37 min	0.97%	A+
PDX to OAK · Oakland	1,319	77.2%	48 min	0.76%	B+
PDX to ANC · Anchorage	1,239	83.4%	48 min	0.00%	B+
PDX to IAH · Houston	1,208	86.6%	66 min	0.50%	A+
PDX to GEG · Spokane	1,069	84.7%	41 min	0.84%	B+
PDX to BUR · Burbank	1,001	86.5%	54 min	0.80%	A+
PDX to JFK · New York	924	87.5%	65 min	2.16%	A
PDX to EWR · Newark	923	84.3%	85 min	1.73%	B
PDX to BOI · Boise	922	85.9%	49 min	0.76%	A+
PDX to HNL · Honolulu	903	60.7%	60 min	1.88%	D
PDX to PSP · Palm Springs	738	83.0%	48 min	1.22%	B

Departure window

The best time of day to leave PDX

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 11 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am15,741 flights88.1%
8am–11am11,547 flights83.1%
11am–2pm8,652 flights80.4%
2pm–5pm9,888 flights79.9%
5pm–8pm9,585 flights77.5%
8pm–5am8,371 flights82.3%

Scale runs 70% to 95%.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.1% of the time, against 77.5% for the evening window. That is 11 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 15,741 flights scheduled in it.

Explore

Filter PDX departures by airline, time, month and day

Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.

On departures from Portland (PDX), the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 77.5%, a wide gap of 10.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.

5–8am88.1%
8–11am83.1%
11am–2pm80.4%
2–5pm79.9%
5–8pm77.5%
8pm–5am82.3%

best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.

Across the year

When PDX runs late

Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 63,784 flights. The strip shows how much of PDX's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, July worst

August is the worst month at 78.0% on time, 8 points below February, the best at 86.3%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 6,304 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 80.1%, a spread of 4 points.

PDX month by month

From Europe

Transatlantic routes into PDX

3 European airports send scheduled passenger flights to PDX, 1,487 flights a year in both directions by the DOT's international count. The DOT keeps no delay record for international flights; the UK routes carry the CAA's departure punctuality, and every route sets its departure airport's EUROCONTROL figures beside PDX's own record above.

Every Europe-to-US route

Delay causes

Why PDX gets delayed

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 658,000 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
36%
Late-arriving aircraft
36%
National Airspace System
25%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
0%

36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 658,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 657,765 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 239,000 of the 658,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.74%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

63,784 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.

What to do with this

Flying out of PDX

Put together: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 77.5% on time against 88.1% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 11 points is the largest single thing you control here. Delta Air Lines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 63,138 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

PDX delay questions

How often is Portland (PDX) delayed?

About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.5% of the 63,784 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on Portland (PDX)?

Delta Air Lines leads at 90.1% on time across 7,151 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 75.7%, a gap of 14 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.

What time of day has the fewest delays on Portland (PDX)?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 77.5%, 11 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.

How bad are August delays on Portland (PDX)?

August is the weakest month at 78.0% on time, compared with 86.3% in February. Across the year that is 8 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Embed PDX’s on-time badge on your site

Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.

<iframe src="https://delayatlas.com/embed/airport/pdx" width="320" height="132" style="border:0;max-width:100%" loading="lazy" title="PDX airport on-time record"></iframe>
<p style="font:12px/1.4 sans-serif;margin:4px 0 0">PDX airport delay statistics from <a href="https://delayatlas.com/airports/pdx">DelayAtlas</a></p>

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.