Route reliability record
PDX→ATL
Portland to Atlanta
- Flights
- 1,544
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,172 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 11 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 50 minutes. That rests on 1,544 PDX to ATL flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly PDX to ATL: a 8pm–5am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 92.7%, against 88.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 111 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,520 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.91%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
90.2% on time across 1,257 flights
These figures cover 1,544 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 PDX to ATL
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,257 | 90.2% | 60 min | 0.95% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 286 | 80.2% | 36 min | 0.70% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on PDX to ATL
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.
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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 1,544 flights.
- 5am–8am651 flights88.4%
- 8am–11am2 flights—
- 11am–2pm393 flights87.4%
- 2pm–5pm152 flights88.7%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am346 flights89.1%
Scale runs 80% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 89.1% on time across 346 flights. Red-eyes fly into empty airspace and empty gates, and they are the first rotation of the aircraft's day rather than the last. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 651 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PDX to ATL 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 PDX to ATL, the best departure window is 8pm–5am at 89.1% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 87.4%, a narrow gap of 1.7 points. All US flights leaving 8pm–5am ran 70.1%.
- 5–8am88.4%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm87.4%
- 2–5pm88.7%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am89.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
July is the worst month at 76.4% on time, 23 points below March, the best at 99.0%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. August was the busiest month here, with 156 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 92.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 81.3%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 45% of the 9,270 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Carrier
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,202 of the 9,270 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,270 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.91% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.65%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.0% 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.
At 2,172 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 78.4% on time across 1,545 flights, 10 points below 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,544 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 ATL 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. March runs 99.0% on time and July 76.4%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,520 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PDX to ATL questions
How often is PDX to ATL delayed?
About one flight in nine arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 11.6% of the 1,544 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is PDX to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
88.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 11 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PDX to ATL?
The 8pm–5am departure window is the strongest at 89.1% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 87.4%, 2 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 July delays on PDX to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 76.4% on time, compared with 99.0% in March. Across the year that is 23 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
- ATL to PDX — the return legseparate record
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on PDX to ATL90.2%
- Alaska Airlines on PDX to ATL80.2%
- PDX to SEA, a related route84.9%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- PDX to LAX, a related route86.6%
- American Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record90.2%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record80.2%
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. PDX to ATL and ATL to PDX 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.