Route reliability record
PDX→EWR
Portland to Newark
- Flights
- 923
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,434 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 923 PDX to EWR flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 407 at 87.2% on time.
Best time to fly PDX to EWR: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.7% of the time and Friday flights 93.2%, against 84.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 70 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 904 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.73%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Alaska
87.2% on time across 407 flights
These figures cover 923 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 15 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 EWR
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 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 | 407 | 87.2% | 79 min | 1.72% | A |
| United Airlines | 516 | 82.0% | 88 min | 1.74% | B |
No carrier stands out. Alaska tops the table at 87.2%, 5 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 EWR
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 Newark
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 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PDX → JFKPortland to New York | Delta Air Lines | 88.9% | 91.0% | 2.36% | 8pm–5am, Fri | DL 451 07:00 |
| 2. PDX → EWRPortland to Newark | Alaska Airlines | 85.7% | 87.2% | 1.72% | 8pm–5am, Wed | AS 294 07:40 |
| 3. PDX → JFKPortland to New York | Alaska Airlines | 81.0% | 82.5% | 1.87% | 5am–8am, Sat | AS 18 07:05 |
| 4. PDX → EWRPortland to Newark | United Airlines | 80.6% | 82.0% | 1.74% | 8pm–5am, Fri | UA 1802 22:52 |
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 923 flights.
- 5am–8am125 flights91.7%
- 8am–11am337 flights82.4%
- 11am–2pm20 flights—
- 2pm–5pm10 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am431 flights84.9%
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.7% of the time, against 82.4% for the morning 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 431 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PDX to EWR 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 EWR, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.7% on time and the worst is 8am–11am at 82.4%, a real gap of 9.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.7%
- 8–11am82.4%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am84.9%
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 19 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 75.8% on time, against 95.0% in February. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 122 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 93.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.8%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 51% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
51% 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 6,098 minutes out of 12,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 12,018 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.73% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.33%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.0% 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 2,434 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 75.9% on time across 923 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 923 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in EWR after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 923 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 84.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 904 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PDX to EWR questions
How often is PDX to EWR 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 15.7% of the 923 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 EWR?
Alaska Airlines leads at 87.2% on time across 407 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 82.0%, a gap of 5 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 EWR?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.7% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 82.4%, 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 December delays on PDX to EWR?
December is the weakest month at 75.8% on time, compared with 95.0% in February. Across the year that is 19 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
- EWR to PDX — the return legseparate record
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on PDX to EWR87.2%
- United Airlines on PDX to EWR82.0%
- PDX to SEA, a related route84.9%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- PDX to LAX, a related route86.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record87.2%
- United Airlines on-time record82.0%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. PDX to EWR and EWR 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.