Route reliability record
PDX→DFW
Portland to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 2,327
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,616 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 2,327 PDX to DFW flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 436 at 85.5% on time.
Best time to fly PDX to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.5% of the time and Friday flights 85.1%, against 82.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 52 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,259 completed flights
Avg delay
98 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.28%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Alaska
85.5% on time across 436 flights
These figures cover 2,327 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 DFW
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 436 | 85.5% | 40 min | 0.69% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 1,891 | 81.8% | 108 min | 2.64% | B |
No carrier stands out. Alaska tops the table at 85.5%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on PDX to DFW
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Portland to Dallas-Fort Worth
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PDX → DFWPortland to Dallas-Fort Worth | Alaska Airlines | 84.9% | 85.5% | 0.69% | 8pm–5am, Sun | AS 392 10:45 |
| 2. PDX → DFWPortland to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 79.6% | 81.8% | 2.64% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 2216 07:00 |
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 matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 15 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am753 flights89.5%
- 8am–11am262 flights86.9%
- 11am–2pm656 flights75.0%
- 2pm–5pm214 flights76.5%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am442 flights82.0%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 75.0% on time against 89.5% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 753 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PDX to DFW 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 DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.5% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 75.0%, a wide gap of 14.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.5%
- 8–11am86.9%
- 11am–2pm75.0%
- 2–5pm76.5%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am82.0%
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 13 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.
June is the worst month at 72.9% on time, 13 points below March, the best at 86.3%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 225 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 77.9%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 39,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 42%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 39,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 38,513 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 16,000 of the 39,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.28% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.64%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,616 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 67.4% on time across 2,328 flights, 15 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 15 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,327 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 DFW 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 86.3% on time and June 72.9%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,259 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PDX to DFW questions
How often is PDX to DFW delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.5% of the 2,327 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PDX to DFW?
Alaska Airlines leads at 85.5% on time across 436 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 81.8%, a gap of 4 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 PDX to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.5% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 75.0%, 15 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 June delays on PDX to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 72.9% on time, compared with 86.3% in March. Across the year that is 13 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
- DFW to PDX — the return legseparate record
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on PDX to DFW85.5%
- American Airlines on PDX to DFW81.8%
- PDX to SEA, a related route84.9%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- PDX to LAX, a related route86.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record85.5%
- American Airlines on-time record81.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. PDX to DFW and DFW 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.