Route reliability record
ATL→PDX
Atlanta to Portland
- Flights
- 1,576
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,172 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,576 ATL to PDX flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to PDX: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.9% of the time and Saturday flights 83.7%, against 79.6% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,560 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.89%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
79.0% on time across 1,288 flights
These figures cover 1,576 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 airline is most reliable on ATL to PDX
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 286 | 81.8% | 75 min | 0.35% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,288 | 79.0% | 49 min | 1.01% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to PDX
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am433 flights85.9%
- 11am–2pm114 flights85.1%
- 2pm–5pm160 flights75.9%
- 5pm–8pm646 flights77.3%
- 8pm–5am223 flights73.8%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 85.9% of the time, against 73.8% for the overnight window. That is 12 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 646 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
September is the best month on the calendar at 93.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 178 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.7%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route 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 17,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Carrier
- 33%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 6,059 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 16,897 reported delay minutes.
33% 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 5,513 minutes out of 17,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.89%, below the national 1.81% 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,172 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 88.2% on time across 1,575 flights, 9 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,576 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in PDX after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 93.1% on time and March 65.7%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,560 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to PDX questions
How often is ATL to PDX delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.4% of the 1,576 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is ATL to PDX compared with the rest of the country?
79.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ATL to PDX?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 85.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 73.8%, 12 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 March delays on ATL to PDX?
March is the weakest month at 65.7% on time, compared with 93.1% in September. Across the year that is 27 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- PDX to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on ATL to PDX81.8%
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to PDX79.0%
- ATL to LGA, a related route73.4%
- SEA to PDX, a related route83.1%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.7%
- American Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record81.8%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. ATL to PDX and PDX to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.