Route reliability record
MSP→PDX
Minneapolis to Portland
- Flights
- 1,512
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,426 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,512 MSP to PDX flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSP to PDX: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.0%, against 81.6% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 40 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,503 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.60%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
81.1% on time across 1,329 flights
These figures cover 1,512 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 MSP 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 | 183 | 85.0% | 64 min | 1.64% | A |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,329 | 81.1% | 52 min | 0.45% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP 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.
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 24 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–11am225 flights89.7%
- 11am–2pm436 flights84.1%
- 2pm–5pm373 flights81.7%
- 5pm–8pm404 flights77.1%
- 8pm–5am74 flights66.2%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.7% of the time, against 66.2% for the overnight window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 436 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 47 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 48.3% on time, against 95.3% 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. June was the busiest month here, with 163 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 80.0%. 5 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. Carrier accounts for 46% of the 15,000 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.
- 46%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 6,698 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 14,590 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.60%, below the national 1.81% 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
5.4% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,426 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 90.9% on time across 1,513 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,512 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: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 95.3% on time and December 48.3%, a swing of 47 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,503 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to PDX questions
How often is MSP to PDX delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.4% of the 1,512 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is MSP to PDX compared with the rest of the country?
81.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to PDX?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 89.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.2%, 24 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 MSP to PDX?
December is the weakest month at 48.3% on time, compared with 95.3% in September. Across the year that is 47 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 MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on MSP to PDX85.0%
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to PDX81.1%
- MSP to ORD, a related route69.9%
- SEA to PDX, a related route83.1%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record85.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.1%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. MSP to PDX and PDX to MSP 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.