Carrier route record
WNPHX→PDX
Southwest Airlines · Phoenix to Portland
- Flights
- 1,273
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 34%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on PHX to PDX sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,273 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Alaska Airlines, flew 1,372 at 87.9% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on PHX to PDX runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 81 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,267 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.47%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.7%
Every carrier on PHX to PDX, 3,731 flights
These figures cover 1,273 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on PHX to PDX
Southwest flew 1,273 of the 3,731 flights on PHX to PDX, about 34% of it. Its 69.5% on time is 9 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last 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; American Airlines manages 75.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 871 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| 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 | 871 | 75.9% | 64 min | 0.46% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,273 | 69.5% | 47 min | 0.47% | C+ |
The spread between Alaska and American is 12 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 12 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 38 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am90 flights90.8%
- 8am–11am273 flights85.3%
- 11am–2pm120 flights80.7%
- 2pm–5pm216 flights67.1%
- 5pm–8pm274 flights52.4%
- 8pm–5am300 flights61.9%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 52.4% on time, against 90.8% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 300 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on PHX to PDX through the year
June is the worst month at 54.5% on time, 32 points below February, the best at 86.8%. 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 125 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 76.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.3%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 60% of the 18,000 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.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 5%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
60% 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 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 60 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 18,105 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 6,302 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.47%, 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
7.1% 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 45 minutes, 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.5% on time across 1,274 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,273 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 Southwest on PHX to PDX
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 86.8% on time and June 54.5%, a swing of 32 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,267 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to PDX, every carrier
- Southwest on PDX to PHX, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on PHX to PDX87.9%
- American Airlines on PHX to PDX75.9%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.