Route reliability record
DFW→PDX
Dallas-Fort Worth to Portland
- Flights
- 2,410
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,616 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route draws a D. About one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 2,410 flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 493 at 75.5% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 13 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 127 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
64.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,342 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.61%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Alaska
75.5% on time across 493 flights
These figures cover 2,410 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.7% 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
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to PDX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Alaska Airlines arrives on time 75.5% of the time; American Airlines manages 62.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,917 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 493 | 75.5% | 64 min | 1.22% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,917 | 62.1% | 64 min | 2.97% | D |
The spread between Alaska and American is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 24 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am150 flights67.6%
- 8am–11am544 flights77.0%
- 11am–2pm175 flights66.9%
- 2pm–5pm333 flights60.7%
- 5pm–8pm722 flights64.2%
- 8pm–5am486 flights53.1%
Scale runs 45% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 53.1% on time, against 77.0% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 722 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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.
August is the worst month at 49.8% on time, 29 points below March, the best at 78.3%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 240 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 71.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.8%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 53,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% 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 53,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 52,842 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 77.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.61%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 1,616 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 80.7% on time across 2,412 flights, 16 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 16 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,410 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 78.3% on time and August 49.8%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,342 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to PDX questions
How often is DFW to PDX delayed?
About one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 35.1% of the 2,410 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to PDX?
Alaska Airlines leads at 75.5% on time across 493 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 62.1%, a gap of 13 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 DFW to PDX?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 77.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 53.1%, 24 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 DFW to PDX?
August is the weakest month at 49.8% on time, compared with 78.3% in March. Across the year that is 29 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 DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on-time record75.5%
- American Airlines on-time record62.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. DFW to PDX and PDX to DFW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.