Route reliability record
GEG→PDX
Spokane to Portland
- Flights
- 962
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 279 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 10 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 962 GEG to PDX flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 548 at 91.1% on time.
Best time to fly GEG to PDX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 90.8%, against 87.2% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 96 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 953 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.94%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Alaska
91.1% on time across 548 flights
These figures cover 962 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 GEG to PDX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Alaska Airlines arrives on time 91.1% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 82.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 414 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 548 | 91.1% | 51 min | 1.28% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines | 414 | 82.0% | 64 min | 0.48% | B+ |
Alaska leads SkyWest by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Spokane 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. GEG → PDXSpokane to Portland | Alaska Airlines | 89.9% | 91.1% | 1.28% | 5am–8am, Sun | — |
| 2. GEG → PDXSpokane to Portland | SkyWest Airlines | 81.6% | 82.0% | 0.48% | 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 15 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am251 flights96.4%
- 8am–11am51 flights86.0%
- 11am–2pm298 flights85.7%
- 2pm–5pm325 flights81.8%
- 5pm–8pm37 flights86.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 96.4% of the time, against 81.8% for the afternoon window. That is 15 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 325 flights scheduled in it.
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 76.2% on time, 22 points below April, the best at 97.7%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 113 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 84.5%. 6 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 49% of the 7,157 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.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
49% 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 7,157 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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 7,157 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 96.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.94% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.1% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 279 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 86.3% on time across 964 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 962 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. 962 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 87.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 953 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
GEG to PDX questions
How often is GEG to PDX delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 12.8% of the 962 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on GEG to PDX?
Alaska Airlines leads at 91.1% on time across 548 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 82.0%, a gap of 9 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 GEG to PDX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.4% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 81.8%, 15 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 GEG to PDX?
June is the weakest month at 76.2% on time, compared with 97.7% in April. 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 GEG — the return legseparate record
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on GEG to PDX91.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on GEG to PDX82.0%
- GEG to SEA, a related route85.9%
- SEA to PDX, a related route83.1%
- GEG to DEN, a related route83.8%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record91.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record82.0%
- 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. GEG to PDX and PDX to GEG 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.