Carrier route record
DLJFK→PDX
Delta Air Lines · New York to Portland
- Flights
- 550
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 60%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta 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, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 550 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Delta on JFK to PDX runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 70 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 535 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.55%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
71.4%
Every carrier on JFK to PDX, 924 flights
These figures cover 550 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on JFK to PDX
Delta flew 550 of the 924 flights on JFK to PDX, most of the route. Its 70.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 71.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 73.2% to Delta at 70.3%.
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 Airlines | 374 | 73.2% | 74 min | 2.14% | C |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 550 | 70.3% | 64 min | 2.55% | C |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on JFK to PDX
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Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am186 flights82.7%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm348 flights63.9%
- 8pm–5am16 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.9% on time, against 82.7% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 348 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on JFK to PDX through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 85.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 74.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 65.8%, a spread of 8 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on JFK to PDX runs when it is late
Delta on JFK to PDX often beats the schedule: 135 of 535 completed flights, 25%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 159 late arrivals split 48 under half an hour, 54 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 57 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early135 flights25.2%
- Within 15 min241 flights45.0%
- 15–29 min late48 flights9.0%
- 30–59 min late54 flights10.1%
- 1–2 hours late36 flights6.7%
- 2+ hours late21 flights3.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 535 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
18 of 102 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. In the other direction, 75 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at PDX.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on JFK to PDX
The latest arrival of the period was on 3 August 2026, 4 hours 51 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. The five worst days are spread across August, July, June and October, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 3 August 2026 | 4 hours 51 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 6 July 2026 | 4 hours 8 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 June 2026 | 4 hours 2 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 12 June 2026 | 3 hours 58 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 15 October 2025 | 3 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 50% of the 10,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%National Airspace System
- 29%Carrier
- 18%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
50% 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 5,145 minutes out of 10,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 10,241 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.55%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
10.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection 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 91.0% on time across 550 flights, 21 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 21 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 550 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 Delta on JFK to PDX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 550 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 70.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 535 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- JFK to PDX, every carrier
- Delta on PDX to JFK, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on JFK to PDX73.2%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.