Flight number record
AS 540
Alaska Airlines · Portland to Austin
- Route
- PDX → AUS
- Departs
- 10:30
- Flights
- 328
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s AS 540, check with Alaska Airlines.
AS 540 lands a B, 6 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 roughly 45 minutes on average. That rests on 328 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
Set against the rest of the country, AS 540's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 57 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 323 completed flights
Avg delay
43 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.52%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 328 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Schedule
When AS 540 flies
AS 540 flies PDX to AUS without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 10:30, used on 70 of 328 flights, with 10:47 (36 flights) and 10:46 (34 flights) next.
- Departs 10:3070 flights21.3%
- Departs 10:4736 flights11.0%
- Departs 10:4634 flights10.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 10:30 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and AS 540 runs level with that at 83.0%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Against the route
AS 540 next to PDX to AUS
Every carrier on PDX to AUS combined arrived on time 83.7% of the time across 609 flights, so AS 540 is about level with it. Across its whole network Alaska Airlines managed 79.7%, which this flight beats by 3 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AS 540thin sample | 328 | 83.0% | 43 min | 1.52% | B |
| All Alaska Airlines on PDX–AUS | 609 | 83.7% | 48 min | 0.99% | B+ |
| All carriers on PDX–AUS | 609 | 83.7% | 48 min | 0.99% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines, whole network | 309,844 | 79.7% | 52 min | 1.20% | B |
Across the year
AS 540 quarter by quarter
AS 540 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 87.9% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 67.8%, a swing of 20 points on roughly 82 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
- Oct–Dec 202587 flights83.7%
- Jan–Mar 202688 flights87.4%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights87.9%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights67.8%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
By weekday, AS 540 ranged from 78.7% on Thursday to 89.1% on Wednesday. With about 47 flights behind each day, a spread of 10 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late AS 540 runs when it is late
Most of the lateness is short. 33 of the 55 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 10 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early38 flights11.8%
- Within 15 min230 flights71.2%
- 15–29 min late33 flights10.2%
- 30–59 min late12 flights3.7%
- 1–2 hours late7 flights2.2%
- 2+ hours late3 flights0.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 323 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 42 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 16 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 29 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at AUS.
The worst days
Worst days for AS 540
The latest arrival of the period was on 27 December 2025, 3 hours 52 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across December, January and November, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 27 December 2025 | 3 hours 52 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 December 2025 | 3 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 January 2026 | 2 hours 28 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 9 November 2025 | 1 hour 46 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 30 November 2025 | 1 hour 40 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why AS 540 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 46% of the 2,349 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%National Airspace System
- 30%Carrier
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
46% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,077 minutes out of 2,349, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 2,349 delay minutes reported on AS 540.
Cancellations sit at 1.52% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.1% 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.
At 1,715 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
Every one of the 328 flights under AS 540 in the data flew PDX to AUS. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 328 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking AS 540
For a booking, read AS 540 as 83.0% on time with 1.52% cancelled over 328 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on-time record
- Every Alaska Airlines flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
A flight number here means Alaska Airlines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.