Carrier route record

ASPDX→IAH

Alaska Airlines · Portland to Houston

Flights: 353
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 29%
Carriers: 2

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

Alaska on PDX to IAH earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 45 minutes. That rests on 353 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Alaska's PDX to IAH record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 81 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

85.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 349 completed flights

Avg delay

43 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.85%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

86.6%

Every carrier on PDX to IAH, 1,208 flights

These figures cover 353 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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

Alaska against every carrier on PDX to IAH

Alaska flew 353 of the 1,208 flights on PDX to IAH, about 29% of it. Its 85.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 86.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 87.1% to Alaska at 85.4%.

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 IAH
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	855	87.1%	77 min	0.35%	A+
Alaska Airlines (this page)thin sample	353	85.4%	43 min	0.85%	A+

Flight by flight

Alaska flight numbers on PDX to IAH

AS 142007:0585.2% · 348 flights

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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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am146 flights94.5%
8am–11am138 flights77.0%
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 94.5% of the time, against 77.0% for the morning window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 146 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Alaska on PDX to IAH through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.May best, October worst

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, Monday is the strongest day at 90.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 78.0%, a spread of 13 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late Alaska on PDX to IAH runs when it is late

Alaska on PDX to IAH often beats the schedule: 131 of 349 completed flights, 38%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 32 of the 51 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 8 reached an hour or more.

15+ min early131 flights37.5%
Within 15 min167 flights47.9%
15–29 min late32 flights9.2%
30–59 min late11 flights3.2%
1–2 hours late5 flights1.4%
2+ hours late3 flights0.9%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 349 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

A late pushback is often recovered here: of 43 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 16 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 24 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at IAH.

The worst days

Worst days for Alaska on PDX to IAH

The latest arrival of the period was on 15 October 2025, 4 hours 21 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across October, March, January and May, with no single month standing out.

The latest arrivals of Alaska on PDX to IAH in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
15 October 2025	4 hours 21 minutes	Carrier
16 March 2026	3 hours 46 minutes	National Airspace System
16 January 2026	2 hours 30 minutes	Carrier
8 March 2026	1 hour 51 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
1 May 2026	1 hour 33 minutes	National Airspace System

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

National Airspace System accounts for 48% of the 2,181 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

National Airspace System
48%
Carrier
36%
Late-arriving aircraft
13%
Security
3%

48% 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 1,039 minutes out of 2,181, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 2,181 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 780 of the 2,181 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.85%, below the national 1.89% 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 2.3% 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 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 77.6% on time across 353 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. 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 85.4% 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.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures