Route reliability record

PDX→PHX

Portland to Phoenix

Flights: 3,733
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 1,010 mi
Carriers: 6

This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 3,733 flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 1,375 at 83.8% on time.

Alaska Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 83.8% on time across 1,375 flights.

On time

80.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,707 completed flights

Avg delay

71 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.48%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Alaska

83.8% on time across 1,375 flights

These figures cover 3,733 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

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 83.8% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 75.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,274 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on PDX to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	86	90.7%	151 min	0.00%	A+
Alaska Airlines	1,375	83.8%	48 min	0.44%	B+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	94	80.4%	122 min	1.06%	B
Envoy Airthin sample	35	80.0%	45 min	0.00%	B+
American Airlines	869	79.3%	129 min	1.04%	B
Southwest Airlines	1,274	75.5%	50 min	0.16%	B+

Alaska leads Southwest by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

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 22 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am989 flights89.8%
8am–11am628 flights89.0%
11am–2pm355 flights75.7%
2pm–5pm914 flights75.3%
5pm–8pm614 flights68.8%
8pm–5am233 flights68.1%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.8% of the time, against 68.1% for the overnight window. That is 22 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 989 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 14 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, November worst

April is the best month on the calendar at 86.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 410 flights.

Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 82.9% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 78.0%. 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 48% of the 53,000 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.

Carrier
48%
Late-arriving aircraft
39%
National Airspace System
13%
Security
0%
Extreme weather
0%

39% 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 53,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 39 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 52,993 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, 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 25,000 of the 53,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.48%, 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

5.3% 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 are the a little over an hour kind, 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. 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 78.7% on time across 3,731 flights, within about a point 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 3,733 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.

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 November 72.2%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of November before you think about anything else. 3,707 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 arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.0% of the 3,733 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 83.8% on time across 1,375 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 75.5%, a gap of 8 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 89.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 68.1%, 22 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 November delays on PDX to PHX?

November is the weakest month at 72.2% on time, compared with 86.4% in April. Across the year that is 14 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

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.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures