Carrier route record

AAPHX→PDX

American Airlines · Phoenix to Portland

Flights: 871
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 23%
Carriers: 6

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on PHX to PDX sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 871 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Alaska Airlines, flew 1,372 at 87.9% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHX to PDX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

75.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 866 completed flights

Avg delay

64 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.46%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.7%

Every carrier on PHX to PDX, 3,731 flights

These figures cover 871 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% 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 PHX to PDX

American flew 871 of the 3,731 flights on PHX to PDX, about 23% of it. Its 75.9% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number five of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 90.5% to Southwest at 69.5%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Alaska Airlines arrives on time 87.9% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 69.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,273 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on PHX to PDX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	95	90.5%	87 min	0.00%	A+
Alaska Airlines	1,372	87.9%	57 min	0.29%	A+
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	85	83.5%	61 min	0.00%	B+
Envoy Airthin sample	35	82.9%	67 min	0.00%	B+
American Airlines (this page)	871	75.9%	64 min	0.46%	B+
Southwest Airlines	1,273	69.5%	47 min	0.47%	C+

The spread between Alaska and Southwest is 18 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 18 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

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 21 points, against 18 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am44 flights79.5%
8am–11am237 flights85.6%
11am–2pm139 flights78.3%
2pm–5pm150 flights73.2%
5pm–8pm153 flights71.5%
8pm–5am148 flights64.2%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.2% on time, against 85.6% for the 8am–11am 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 237 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on PHX to PDX through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, June worst

June is the worst month at 66.3% on time, 17 points below February, the best at 83.1%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 91 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.7%. 14 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 13,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
58%
Carrier
35%
National Airspace System
6%
Extreme weather
0%
Security
0%

58% 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 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 58 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 13,351 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 4,689 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.46%, 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 costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.5% 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.

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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.3% on time across 869 flights, 3 points above 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 3 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 871 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 PHX to PDX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 871 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 75.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 866 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures