Route reliability record
PDX→JFK
Portland to New York
- Flights
- 914
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,454 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route 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 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 914 PDX to JFK flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly PDX to JFK: a 8pm–5am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.7% of the time and Friday flights 89.7%, against 85.1% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 75 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 886 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.08%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
86.7% on time across 550 flights
These figures cover 914 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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
Which airline is most reliable on PDX to JFK
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 550 | 86.7% | 72 min | 2.18% | A |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 364 | 82.8% | 49 min | 1.92% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on PDX to JFK
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Portland to New York
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. 1 of the top 2 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 | 84.8% | 86.7% | 2.18% | 5am–8am, Fri | DL 451 07:00 |
| 2. PDX → EWRPortland to Newark | United Airlines | 82.5% | 84.1% | 1.92% | 8pm–5am, Tue | 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 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–8am679 flights87.7%
- 8am–11am49 flights79.2%
- 11am–2pm131 flights71.9%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am55 flights90.7%
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 71.9% on time against 90.7% for 8pm–5am. 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 679 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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.
July is the worst month at 69.4% on time, 26 points below March, the best at 95.2%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 89.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 78.7%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 57% of the 8,146 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.
- 57%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 0%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
57% 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 4,648 minutes out of 8,146, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 8,146 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.08% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.98%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.3% 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 2,454 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 72.1% on time across 914 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 914 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 JFK after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 914 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 85.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 886 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PDX to JFK questions
How often is PDX to JFK delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.9% of the 914 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is PDX to JFK compared with the rest of the country?
85.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 8 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PDX to JFK?
The 8pm–5am departure window is the strongest at 90.7% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 71.9%, 19 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 July delays on PDX to JFK?
July is the weakest month at 69.4% on time, compared with 95.2% in March. Across the year that is 26 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
- JFK to PDX — the return legseparate record
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on PDX to JFK86.7%
- Alaska Airlines on PDX to JFK82.8%
- PDX to SEA, a related route84.8%
- LAX to JFK, a related route79.1%
- PDX to LAX, a related route87.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record86.7%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record82.8%
- 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
Direction matters. PDX to JFK and JFK 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.