Route reliability record
PDX→PHX
Portland to Phoenix
- Flights
- 3,768
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,010 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 3,768 PDX to PHX flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 1,440 at 83.1% on time.
Best time to fly PDX to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Monday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.9% of the time and Monday flights 81.6%, against 79.4% for the route overall.
Alaska Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 83.1% on time across 1,440 flights.
Key figures
On time
79.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,744 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.45%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Alaska
83.1% on time across 1,440 flights
These figures cover 3,768 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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
Which airline is most reliable on PDX to PHX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Alaska Airlines arrives on time 83.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 74.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,267 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 85 | 90.6% | 151 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,440 | 83.1% | 46 min | 0.42% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 76 | 82.7% | 72 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 36 | 80.6% | 45 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 864 | 79.5% | 151 min | 1.04% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,267 | 74.1% | 52 min | 0.16% | C+ |
Alaska leads Southwest by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on PDX to PHX
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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Portland to Phoenix
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PDX → PHXPortland to Phoenix | Alaska Airlines | 82.8% | 83.1% | 0.42% | 8am–11am, Mon | AS 1349 07:00 |
| 2. PDX → PHXPortland to Phoenix | American Airlines | 78.7% | 79.5% | 1.04% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. PDX → PHXPortland to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 74.0% | 74.1% | 0.16% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 25 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am985 flights90.9%
- 8am–11am641 flights89.2%
- 11am–2pm366 flights72.9%
- 2pm–5pm947 flights74.1%
- 5pm–8pm626 flights66.3%
- 8pm–5am203 flights69.0%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.9% of the time, against 66.3% for the evening window. That is 25 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 985 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PDX to PHX by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On PDX to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 66.3%, a wide gap of 24.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.9%
- 8–11am89.2%
- 11am–2pm72.9%
- 2–5pm74.1%
- 5–8pm66.3%
- 8pm–5am69.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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, 17 points below April, the best at 86.4%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 410 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 81.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 76.7%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 47% of the 57,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Carrier
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
- 0%Extreme weather
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 57,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 40 to one. The split is drawn from 56,849 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 27,000 of the 57,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.45%, 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 actually costs
5.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,010 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.
The return leg runs 77.4% on time across 3,768 flights, within 2 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 3,768 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 PHX 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. April runs 86.4% on time and July 69.4%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,744 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PDX to PHX questions
How often is PDX to PHX delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.6% of the 3,768 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PDX to PHX?
Alaska Airlines leads at 83.1% on time across 1,440 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 74.1%, a gap of 9 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PDX to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.3%, 25 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 PHX?
July is the weakest month at 69.4% on time, compared with 86.4% in April. Across the year that is 17 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
- PHX to PDX — the return legseparate record
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on PDX to PHX83.1%
- American Airlines on PDX to PHX79.5%
- Southwest Airlines on PDX to PHX74.1%
- PDX to SEA, a related route84.9%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- PDX to LAX, a related route86.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record90.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record83.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record82.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. PDX to PHX and PHX 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.