Route reliability record
PDX→MSP
Portland to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,513
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,426 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 13 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 1,513 PDX to MSP flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly PDX to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.4% of the time and Saturday flights 93.0%, against 90.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 133 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
90.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,503 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.53%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
90.8% on time across 1,330 flights
These figures cover 1,513 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 MSP
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 183 | 91.8% | 31 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,330 | 90.8% | 67 min | 0.60% | A+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on PDX to MSP
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.
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 11 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–8am441 flights95.4%
- 8am–11am101 flights94.1%
- 11am–2pm367 flights87.9%
- 2pm–5pm260 flights86.4%
- 5pm–8pm90 flights84.3%
- 8pm–5am254 flights92.9%
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.4% of the time, against 84.3% for the evening window. That is 11 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 441 flights scheduled in it.
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.
July is the worst month at 77.9% on time, 19 points below October, the best at 97.3%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 163 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 93.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 88.3%. 5 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. Carrier accounts for 52% of the 8,653 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.
- 52%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%National Airspace System
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 8,653 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 37 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 8,653 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 4,486 of the 8,653 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.53%, 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 actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.3% 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.
The 1,426 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.6% on time across 1,512 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,513 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 MSP 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. October runs 97.3% on time and July 77.9%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,503 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PDX to MSP questions
How often is PDX to MSP delayed?
Roughly one flight in ten arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 9.1% of the 1,513 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is PDX to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
90.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 13 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 MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 84.3%, 11 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 MSP?
July is the weakest month at 77.9% on time, compared with 97.3% in October. 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
- MSP to PDX — the return legseparate record
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on PDX to MSP91.8%
- Delta Air Lines on PDX to MSP90.8%
- PDX to SEA, a related route84.8%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.7%
- PDX to LAX, a related route87.4%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record91.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record90.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. PDX to MSP and MSP 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.