Route reliability record
JFK→PDX
New York to Portland
- Flights
- 914
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,454 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 914 JFK to PDX flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 55 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 889 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.41%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
72.0% on time across 550 flights
These figures cover 914 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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
Which airline is most reliable on JFK 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 364 | 72.2% | 64 min | 2.75% | C |
| Delta Air Lines | 550 | 72.0% | 67 min | 2.18% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on JFK 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 New York 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 20 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–8am—
- 8am–11am214 flights86.7%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm21 flights—
- 5pm–8pm663 flights67.1%
- 8pm–5am16 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 86.7% of the time, against 67.1% for the evening window. That is 20 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 663 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 33 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 53.3% on time, against 86.5% 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 93 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 75.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 63.2%. 13 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. National Airspace System accounts for 43% of the 16,000 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.
- 43%National Airspace System
- 30%Carrier
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% 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 6,979 minutes out of 16,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 16,318 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.41% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.33%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.4% 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 2,454 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 85.1% on time across 914 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 914 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. 914 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 72.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 889 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to PDX questions
How often is JFK to PDX delayed?
Roughly 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 27.9% of the 914 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is JFK to PDX compared with the rest of the country?
72.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 6 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on JFK to PDX?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 86.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.1%, 20 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 JFK to PDX?
December is the weakest month at 53.3% on time, compared with 86.5% in September. Across the year that is 33 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 JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on JFK to PDX72.2%
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to PDX72.0%
- JFK to LAX, a related route77.6%
- SEA to PDX, a related route83.1%
- JFK to SFO, a related route74.1%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record72.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record72.0%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. JFK to PDX and PDX to JFK 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.