Route reliability record
LAX→PDX
Los Angeles to Portland
- Flights
- 4,289
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 833 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route earns an A+. More than four flights in five 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 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 4,289 LAX to PDX flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 1,818 at 89.8% on time.
Best time to fly LAX to PDX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.5%, against 86.8% for the route overall.
Alaska Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 89.8% on time across 1,818 flights.
Key figures
On time
86.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,263 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Alaska
89.8% on time across 1,818 flights
These figures cover 4,289 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to PDX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Alaska Airlines arrives on time 89.8% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 77.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 563 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 1,818 | 89.8% | 51 min | 0.50% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 219 | 88.5% | 42 min | 0.46% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,689 | 86.6% | 75 min | 0.83% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 563 | 77.0% | 84 min | 0.36% | B+ |
The spread between Alaska and SkyWest is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on LAX 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.
- Delta 276610:0088.7% · 363 flights
- Delta 297507:3589.5% · 363 flights
- Alaska 131514:0891.7% · 351 flights
- Delta 255114:1987.1% · 349 flights
- Alaska 139718:2788.5% · 331 flights
- Alaska 66807:0094.5% · 308 flights
- Delta 245720:0080.9% · 303 flights
- Delta 245916:3086.3% · 292 flights
- Alaska 135511:2382.9% · 290 flights
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Los Angeles 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. 2 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SNA → PDXSanta Ana to Portland | Alaska Airlines | 92.2% | 93.2% | 1.04% | 8pm–5am, Sat | AS 750 07:00 |
| 2. BUR → PDXBurbank to Portland | Alaska Airlines | 90.4% | 91.1% | 0.81% | 5am–8am, Tue (route) | AS 562 07:00 |
| 3. LAX → PDXLos Angeles to Portland | Alaska Airlines | 89.4% | 89.8% | 0.50% | 5am–8am, Sat | AS 668 07:00 |
| 4. LAX → PDXLos Angeles to Portland | Delta Air Lines | 85.9% | 86.6% | 0.83% | 11am–2pm, Wed | DL 2975 07:35 |
| 5. LAX → PDXLos Angeles to Portland | SkyWest Airlines | 76.7% | 77.0% | 0.36% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 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 4,289 flights.
- 5am–8am709 flights91.9%
- 8am–11am674 flights89.1%
- 11am–2pm530 flights86.7%
- 2pm–5pm951 flights87.0%
- 5pm–8pm780 flights83.3%
- 8pm–5am645 flights82.7%
Scale runs 75% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.9% of the time, against 82.7% for the overnight window. That is 9 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 951 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAX to PDX by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On LAX to PDX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.9% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 82.7%, a real gap of 9.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.9%
- 8–11am89.1%
- 11am–2pm86.7%
- 2–5pm87.0%
- 5–8pm83.3%
- 8pm–5am82.7%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 4,289 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
February is the weak month at 83.0% on time, against 91.3% 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. December was the busiest month here, with 382 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 83.1%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 61% of the 38,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 61%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 61%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 23,000 of the 38,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 38,049 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 91.9% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.61%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% 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.
The 833 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg runs 86.6% on time across 4,287 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 4,289 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in PDX after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: take the 5am–8am departure, avoid February if the dates are flexible, and if two carriers are within a few dollars of each other, Alaska is the one with the record behind it. None of that guarantees an on-time arrival; it moves the odds by 13 points, which is the most any booking decision can do. 4,263 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to PDX questions
How often is LAX 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 13.2% of the 4,289 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to PDX?
Alaska Airlines leads at 89.8% on time across 1,818 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 77.0%, a gap of 13 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 LAX to PDX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 82.7%, 9 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 February delays on LAX to PDX?
February is the weakest month at 83.0% on time, compared with 91.3% in May. Across the year that is 8 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 LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on LAX to PDX89.8%
- Frontier Airlines on LAX to PDX88.5%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to PDX86.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on LAX to PDX77.0%
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- SEA to PDX, a related route82.2%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record89.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record88.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record86.6%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. LAX to PDX and PDX to LAX 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.