Carrier route record
ASPDX→IAH
Alaska Airlines · Portland to Houston
- Flights
- 353
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 29%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on PDX to IAH lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 45 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 353 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Alaska's PDX to IAH record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 55 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 349 completed flights
Avg delay
44 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.85%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
85.4%
Every carrier on PDX to IAH, 1,233 flights
These figures cover 353 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 IAH
Alaska flew 353 of the 1,233 flights on PDX to IAH, about 29% of it. Its 83.1% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 85.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 86.4% to Alaska at 83.1%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 880 | 86.4% | 75 min | 0.57% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines (this page)thin sample | 353 | 83.1% | 44 min | 0.85% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Alaska flight numbers on PDX to IAH
Departure window
When Alaska runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 19 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–8am84 flights96.4%
- 8am–11am200 flights77.6%
- 11am–2pm69 flights82.6%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 96.4% of the time, against 77.6% for the morning window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 200 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Alaska on PDX to IAH through the year
May is the best month on the calendar at 96.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 78.0%. 9 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 51% of the 2,611 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.
- 51%National Airspace System
- 26%Carrier
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Security
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 1,324 minutes out of 2,611, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 2,611 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.85%, 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 2.6% 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 1,825 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 78.7% on time across 353 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 353 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 IAH
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 353 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 83.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 349 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PDX to IAH, every carrier
- Alaska on IAH to PDX, the return leg
- United Airlines on PDX to IAH86.4%
- Alaska Airlines network-wide record
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- 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
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.