Route reliability record
PDX→OAK
Portland to Oakland
- Flights
- 1,279
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 543 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,279 PDX to OAK flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Best time to fly PDX to OAK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.1%, against 77.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,269 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.70%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
75.8% on time across 1,181 flights
These figures cover 1,279 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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 OAK
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 | 16 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 82 | 89.0% | 46 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,181 | 75.8% | 52 min | 0.76% | B+ |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Portland to Oakland
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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PDX → SJCPortland to San Jose | SkyWest Airlines | 88.1% | 88.1% | 0.00% | 5pm–8pm, Wed | — |
| 2. PDX → SFOPortland to San Francisco | SkyWest Airlines | 83.8% | 84.2% | 0.44% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 3. PDX → SJCPortland to San Jose | Southwest Airlines | 77.0% | 77.3% | 0.41% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. PDX → OAKPortland to Oakland | Southwest Airlines | 75.2% | 75.8% | 0.76% | 5am–8am, Wed (route) | — |
| 5. PDX → SFOPortland to San Francisco | Alaska Airlines | 71.6% | 72.0% | 0.51% | 2pm–5pm, Sat | AS 128 10:30 |
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 49 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–8am329 flights95.4%
- 8am–11am298 flights82.4%
- 11am–2pm76 flights76.3%
- 2pm–5pm197 flights69.1%
- 5pm–8pm251 flights68.0%
- 8pm–5am128 flights46.8%
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 46.8% on time, against 95.4% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 329 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 32 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 60.3% on time, 32 points below January, the best at 92.7%. 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 124 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 71.7%. 12 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 70% of the 15,000 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.
- 70%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 4%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
70% 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 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 70 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 15,079 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 95.4% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.70%, 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
5.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 543 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 runs 79.6% on time across 1,297 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,279 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 OAK 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. January runs 92.7% on time and July 60.3%, a swing of 32 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,269 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PDX to OAK questions
How often is PDX to OAK delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.0% of the 1,279 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is PDX to OAK compared with the rest of the country?
77.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PDX to OAK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 46.8%, 49 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 OAK?
July is the weakest month at 60.3% on time, compared with 92.7% in January. Across the year that is 32 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
- OAK to PDX — the return legseparate record
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Oakland International (OAK) delay statistics
- PDX to SEA, a related route84.8%
- LAS to OAK, a related route71.6%
- PDX to LAX, a related route87.4%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record100.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record89.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.8%
- 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 OAK and OAK 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.