Route reliability record
DFW→PDX
Dallas-Fort Worth to Portland
- Flights
- 2,328
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,616 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route draws a C. About one flight in three arrives 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 2,328 DFW to PDX flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 437 at 83.3% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to PDX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 79.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 74.3%, against 67.4% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 99 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,273 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.15%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Alaska
83.3% on time across 437 flights
These figures cover 2,328 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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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 83.3% of the time; American Airlines manages 63.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,891 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 437 | 83.3% | 59 min | 0.92% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 1,891 | 63.7% | 65 min | 2.43% | D |
The spread between Alaska and American is 20 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 20 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth to Portland
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → PDXDallas-Fort Worth to Portland | Alaska Airlines | 82.5% | 83.3% | 0.92% | 5pm–8pm, Thu | AS 646 17:45 |
| 2. DFW → PDXDallas-Fort Worth to Portland | American Airlines | 62.2% | 63.7% | 2.43% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 26 points, against 20 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am92 flights79.1%
- 8am–11am597 flights78.5%
- 11am–2pm123 flights68.1%
- 2pm–5pm296 flights60.1%
- 5pm–8pm737 flights69.2%
- 8pm–5am483 flights52.7%
Scale runs 45% to 85%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 52.7% on time, against 79.1% for the 5am–8am 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 737 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to PDX 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 DFW to PDX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 79.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 52.7%, a wide gap of 26.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am79.1%
- 8–11am78.5%
- 11am–2pm68.1%
- 2–5pm60.1%
- 5–8pm69.2%
- 8pm–5am52.7%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
June is the worst month at 56.8% on time, 22 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. October was the busiest month here, with 224 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 74.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.1%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 48,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 12%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. Across 48,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 47,827 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 17,000 of the 48,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.15% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection 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 82.5% on time across 2,327 flights, 15 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 15 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,328 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. March runs 78.3% on time and June 56.8%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,273 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 32.6% of the 2,328 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to PDX?
Alaska Airlines leads at 83.3% on time across 437 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 63.7%, a gap of 20 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 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 79.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 52.7%, 26 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 June delays on DFW to PDX?
June is the weakest month at 56.8% on time, compared with 78.3% in March. Across the year that is 22 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 DFW to PDX83.3%
- American Airlines on DFW to PDX63.7%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- SEA to PDX, a related route82.2%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record83.3%
- American Airlines on-time record63.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.
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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.