Carrier route record

ASPDX→ATL

Alaska Airlines · Portland to Atlanta

Flights: 286
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 18%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.

Alaska on PDX to ATL lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 30 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 286 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Alaska on PDX to ATL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

76.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 285 completed flights

Avg delay

31 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.35%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

88.2%

Every carrier on PDX to ATL, 1,575 flights

These figures cover 286 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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

Alaska against every carrier on PDX to ATL

Alaska flew 286 of the 1,575 flights on PDX to ATL, about 18% of it. Its 76.8% on time is 11 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 88.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 100.0% to Alaska at 76.8%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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 PDX to ATL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlinesthin sample	1	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
Delta Air Lines	1,288	90.8%	70 min	1.01%	A
Alaska Airlines (this page)thin sample	286	76.8%	31 min	0.35%	B+

Flight by flight

Alaska flight numbers on PDX to ATL

AS 78407:0076.2% · 274 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 286 flights.

There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Alaska's PDX to ATL record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 76.8% is the reliable figure here.

Across the year

Alaska on PDX to ATL through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights57.6%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights82.4%
Jan–Mar 202618 flights—
Apr–Jun 202685 flights88.1%

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 76.8% on time across 286 flights.

Alaska on PDX to ATL did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 88.1% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 57.6%, a swing of 30 points on roughly 95 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 80.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.2%. 7 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 60% of the 2,039 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.

National Airspace System
60%
Carrier
35%
Late-arriving aircraft
5%

The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 704 of the 2,039 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,039 reported delay minutes.

60% 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 1,229 minutes out of 2,039, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations are rare at 0.35%, 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 costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 1.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 81.8% on time across 286 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 286 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 PDX to ATL

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 286 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 76.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 285 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