Route reliability record
EWR→PDX
Newark to Portland
- Flights
- 870
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,434 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four 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 870 EWR to PDX flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly EWR to PDX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.6% of the time and Saturday flights 80.0%, against 76.8% 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
76.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 855 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.61%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
79.3% on time across 521 flights
These figures cover 870 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 EWR 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 521 | 79.3% | 63 min | 1.54% | B |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 349 | 73.2% | 75 min | 1.72% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on EWR 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Newark to Portland
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → PDXNewark to Portland | United Airlines | 78.1% | 79.3% | 1.54% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 2. JFK → PDXNew York to Portland | Delta Air Lines | 70.4% | 72.0% | 2.18% | 8am–11am, Mon | DL 684 18:10 |
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 34 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–8am177 flights96.6%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm40 flights62.5%
- 5pm–8pm653 flights72.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 96.6% of the time, against 62.5% for the afternoon window. That is 34 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 653 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 39 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.
December is the weak month at 50.0% on time, against 88.8% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. June was the busiest month here, with 111 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.7%. 10 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 14,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%National Airspace System
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%Carrier
- 12%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 12% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 13,532 reported delay minutes.
36% 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 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 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.
Cancellations sit at 1.61% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.6% 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 2,434 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 83.2% on time across 870 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 870 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in PDX after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 870 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 76.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 855 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
EWR to PDX questions
How often is EWR to PDX delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.2% of the 870 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is EWR to PDX compared with the rest of the country?
76.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of about a point against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on EWR to PDX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 62.5%, 34 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 December delays on EWR to PDX?
December is the weakest month at 50.0% on time, compared with 88.8% in September. Across the year that is 39 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 EWR — the return legseparate record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- United Airlines on EWR to PDX79.3%
- Alaska Airlines on EWR to PDX73.2%
- EWR to MCO, a related route77.1%
- SEA to PDX, a related route83.1%
- EWR to ATL, a related route77.6%
- United Airlines on-time record79.3%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record73.2%
- 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. EWR to PDX and PDX to EWR are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed EWR to PDX’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.