Carrier route record
UAEWR→PDX
United Airlines · Newark to Portland
- Flights
- 521
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 60%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on EWR to PDX lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 521 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on EWR to PDX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 512 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.54%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.8%
Every carrier on EWR to PDX, 870 flights
These figures cover 521 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
United against every carrier on EWR to PDX
United flew 521 of the 870 flights on EWR to PDX, most of the route. Its 79.3% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 79.3% to Alaska at 73.2%. One 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 521 | 79.3% | 63 min | 1.54% | B |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 349 | 73.2% | 75 min | 1.72% | C |
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 24 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–8am156 flights96.1%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm8 flights—
- 5pm–8pm357 flights71.9%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 96.1% of the time, against 71.9% for the evening window. That is 24 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 357 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on EWR to PDX through the year
December is the weak month at 51.6% on time, against 91.5% 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. July was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.2%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United 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 6,647 reported delay minutes.
- 33%National Airspace System
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 12%Extreme weather
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 6,647 reported delay minutes.
33% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 2,177 minutes out of 6,647, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.54% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.1% 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 about 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 84.1% on time across 521 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 521 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 United on EWR to PDX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 521 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 79.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 512 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to PDX, every carrier
- United on PDX to EWR, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on EWR to PDX73.2%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.