Carrier route record

ASJFK→PDX

Alaska Airlines · New York to Portland

Flights: 364
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 JFK to PDX sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Alaska on JFK to PDX runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 54 extra late arrivals.

On time

72.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 353 completed flights

Avg delay

64 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.75%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

72.1%

Every carrier on JFK to PDX, 914 flights

These figures cover 364 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% 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 JFK to PDX

Alaska flew 364 of the 914 flights on JFK to PDX, about 40% of it. Its 72.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 72.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 72.2% to Delta at 72.0%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on JFK to PDX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Alaska Airlines (this page)thin sample	364	72.2%	64 min	2.75%	C
Delta Air Lines	550	72.0%	67 min	2.18%	C

Flight by flight

Alaska flight numbers on JFK to PDX

AS 1917:2972.2% · 363 flights

Departure window

When Alaska runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 364 flights.

There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Alaska's JFK to PDX record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 72.2% is the reliable figure here.

Across the year

Alaska on JFK to PDX through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.May best, December worst

December is the weak month at 53.3% on time, against 90.3% 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. January was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 57.1%. 23 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 6,220 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
37%
Late-arriving aircraft
34%
Carrier
17%
Extreme weather
12%
Security
1%

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 6,220 reported delay minutes.

37% 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 2,270 minutes out of 6,220, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations run at 2.75%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

8.5% 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 2,454 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 82.8% on time across 364 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 364 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 JFK to PDX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 364 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 72.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 353 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures