Carrier route record

ASATL→PDX

Alaska Airlines · Atlanta to Portland

Flights: 286
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 18%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.

Alaska on ATL to PDX lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 286 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Alaska's ATL to PDX record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 42 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

81.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 285 completed flights

Avg delay

75 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.35%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

79.6%

Every carrier on ATL to PDX, 1,576 flights

These figures cover 286 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Carrier by carrier

Alaska against every carrier on ATL to PDX

Alaska flew 286 of the 1,576 flights on ATL to PDX, about 18% of it. Its 81.8% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 79.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 100.0% to Delta at 79.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on ATL to PDX
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 Airlines (this page)thin sample	286	81.8%	75 min	0.35%	B+
Delta Air Lines	1,288	79.0%	49 min	1.01%	B

Flight by flight

Alaska flight numbers on ATL to PDX

AS 78318:1181.8% · 286 flights

Departure window

When Alaska runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 286 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm30 flights90.0%
5pm–8pm256 flights80.8%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 90.0% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 80.8%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 256 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Alaska on ATL to PDX through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights81.5%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights76.9%
Jan–Mar 202618 flights—
Apr–Jun 202685 flights84.5%

Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 81.8% on time across 286 flights.

Quarter by quarter Alaska on ATL to PDX held fairly steady: 81.5% in Jul–Sep 2025, 76.9% in Oct–Dec 2025 and 84.5% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 8 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.2% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 73.8%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 3,897 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Late-arriving aircraft
50%
National Airspace System
31%
Carrier
13%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
3%

50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 3,897 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 3,897 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.35%, 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 costs

8.1% 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 a little over an hour, 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 76.8% on time across 286 flights, 5 points below 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 5 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 286 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 Alaska on ATL to PDX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 286 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 81.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 285 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures