Carrier route record
AAPDX→ORD
American Airlines · Portland to Chicago
- Flights
- 863
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 31%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PDX to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 863 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,393 at 80.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PDX to ORD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 840 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.51%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.5%
Every carrier on PDX to ORD, 2,766 flights
These figures cover 863 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on PDX to ORD
American flew 863 of the 2,766 flights on PDX to ORD, about 31% of it. Its 74.0% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 80.7% to American at 74.0%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 80.7% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 74.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 510 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,393 | 80.7% | 68 min | 0.65% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 510 | 74.5% | 39 min | 1.37% | C |
| American Airlines (this page) | 863 | 74.0% | 95 min | 1.51% | C |
United leads Alaska by 6 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 30 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am168 flights88.5%
- 8am–11am114 flights76.4%
- 11am–2pm328 flights67.5%
- 2pm–5pm51 flights58.8%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am202 flights75.3%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.5% of the time, against 58.8% for the afternoon window. That is 30 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 328 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PDX to ORD through the year
July is the worst month at 50.0% on time, 41 points below February, the best at 91.3%. 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 120 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.2%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 47% of the 21,000 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.
- 47%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
34% 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 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 20,807 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, 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 9,769 of the 21,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.51% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.16%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 1,739 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 62.6% on time across 861 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 863 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 American on PDX to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 863 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 74.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 840 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PDX to ORD, every carrier
- American on ORD to PDX, the return leg
- United Airlines on PDX to ORD80.7%
- Alaska Airlines on PDX to ORD74.5%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.