Carrier route record
ASEWR→PDX
Alaska Airlines · Newark to Portland
- Flights
- 349
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 40%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on EWR to PDX sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 349 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Alaska on EWR to PDX runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 44 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 343 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.72%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.8%
Every carrier on EWR to PDX, 870 flights
These figures cover 349 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% 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 EWR to PDX
Alaska flew 349 of the 870 flights on EWR to PDX, about 40% of it. Its 73.2% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 79.3% to Alaska at 73.2%.
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 Airlines (this page)thin sample | 349 | 73.2% | 75 min | 1.72% | C |
Flight by flight
Alaska flight numbers on EWR to PDX
Departure window
When Alaska runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 13 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–8am21 flights—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm32 flights59.4%
- 5pm–8pm296 flights72.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 72.8% on time. The full set of windows spans 13 points.
Across the year
Alaska on EWR to PDX through the year
December is the weak month at 48.4% on time, against 87.1% in May. 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 51 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.6%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Alaska runs late on this route
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 6,885 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 41%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
- 5%Carrier
- 1%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 11% 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 1.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 6,885 reported delay minutes.
42% 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 6,885 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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 1.72% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.9% 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 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 81.9% on time across 349 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 349 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 EWR to PDX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 349 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 73.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 343 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to PDX, every carrier
- Alaska on PDX to EWR, the return leg
- United Airlines on EWR to PDX79.3%
- Alaska Airlines network-wide record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.