Flight profile · Alaska Airlines
AS540
Portland (PDX) to Austin (AUS) · scheduled 10:30 AM – 6:59 PM
How AS540 performs
948 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
AS540 arrived on time 77.1% of the time, against 78.2% for all PDX → AUS flights, so this departure is 1.1 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against Alaska Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 1.1 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 948 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If AS540 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where AS540 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AS540 | 77.1% | 1.16% | 1 min | 5.6% | 948 |
| Alaska Airlines on PDX → AUS | 78.2% | 0.91% | -1 min | 5.4% | 1,422 |
| All PDX → AUS flights | 78.2% | 0.91% | -1 min | 5.4% | 1,422 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why AS540 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for AS540 on PDX → AUS. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies AS540 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying AS540 came in 15 or more minutes late on 11% of the departures where its previous flight is known. There are not enough departures in both groups to say how the flight left after a late one and after an on-time one.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into PDX just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 833 of 937 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late |
|---|---|
| AS540 | 11% |
| Network, same turn | 17% |
The schedule leaves a normal turn: enough time to clean and board if the aircraft is on time, little to spare if it is not.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 60 to 89 minutes. How often AS540’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s. There are not enough departures in both groups to compare how it left.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves PDX late, does that still matter by the time it reaches AUS?
AS540 pushes back an average of 6.6 minutes late and arrives a further 2.1 minutes behind that. This departure loses ground between the two gates rather than recovering it, so a late pushback here tends to get worse on the way, not better. Its 17.4 minutes on the taxiways at PDX is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at AUS, AS540 spends 13.5 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is 5.3 minutes longer than a typical AUS arrival (8.3 min).
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached AUS. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 18,154 departures from PDX scheduled in the clock hour AS540 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at AUS (272,531 flights), not just AS540’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves PDX
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. AS540 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 18,154 departures from PDX are scheduled in the 10 AM–11 AM hour over the period, against 187,633 across the whole day.
AS540 is scheduled out of PDX at 10:30 AM, in the 10 AM–11 AM bank. Departures from PDX in that hour arrive on time 83.5% of the time against 83.2% across the airport’s whole day, so the hour AS540 leaves in is an ordinary one for PDX and explains nothing about its record either way.
The two airport figures cover every departure from PDX to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
By day of week
Does AS540 run worse on particular days?
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Thursday the least, a gap of 14.1 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Days with fewer than 120 operations are not scored.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
38 min late
against a median of 1 min late
Percentiles over 948 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 948 records of AS540 operating PDX → AUS, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
Analysis last recomputed