Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL1203
Portland (PDX) to Salt Lake City (SLC) · scheduled 9:45 AM – 12:50 PM
How DL1203 performs
608 operations, June 2024 – August 2026.
Between its first and last recorded date on PDX → SLC, DL1203 averaged about 5 operations a week (608 in 816 days, cancelled ones included).
DL1203 arrived on time 92.6% of the time, against 88.9% for all PDX → SLC flights, so this departure is 3.7 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 1.4 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 608 operations, June 2024 – August 2026 · If DL1203 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
What stands out
How DL1203 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight stays close to typical even on its worst days, a smaller gap than 96% of 12,358 comparable flight numbers.
A typical arrival is 11 min early, and the worst tenth are only 18 minutes worse than that.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – August 2026 · The one thing about this specific departure that ranks most extreme against every other published flight number, out of everything FlyerIntel checks — shown only when something clears a real statistical bar, not for every flight.
Where DL1203 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL1203 | 92.6% | 1.48% | -11 min | 2.3% | 608 |
| Delta Air Lines on PDX → SLC | 91.2% | 0.73% | -10 min | 3.4% | 5,354 |
| All PDX → SLC flights | 88.9% | 0.62% | -9 min | 3.8% | 7,607 |
DL1203 cancelled 9 of 608 operations (1.48%), above the 0.62% for PDX → SLC.
2.3% of DL1203’s arrivals were an hour or more late, against 3.8% across PDX → SLC, so the long delays are less common on this number than on the route.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – August 2026
Why DL1203 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DL1203 on PDX → SLC. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering June 2024 – August 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies DL1203 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying DL1203 came in 15 or more minutes late on 8% 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.
Matched by tail number to the aircraft’s previous flight into PDX: 594 of 599 departures. Unknown, cancelled or diverted inbounds and gaps over 12 hours are left out.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late |
|---|---|
| DL1203 | 8% |
| Network, same turn | 18% |
59 scheduled minutes is enough to clean and board when the aircraft is on time, with little to spare when it is not.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 45 to 59 minutes. How often DL1203’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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering June 2024 – August 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves PDX late, does that still matter by the time it reaches SLC?
DL1203 pushes back an average of 1.1 minutes late and reaches the gate at SLC an average of 5.5 minutes early. The 6.6 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, so on average a late pushback on this flight is made up before the gate. It spends 12.7 minutes on the taxiways at PDX, 3.4 minutes shorter than a typical PDX departure in the same hour.
On arrival at SLC, DL1203 spends 6.1 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 about what any arrival at SLC spends on the ground before reaching the gate.
Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block; the hourly comparison is 8,649 PDX departures. Taxi-in is landing to gate, set against 365,173 arrivals at SLC. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – August 2026
The hour it leaves PDX
DL1203 has one departure time, 9:45 AM, so this is what that hour at PDX is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 8,649 departures from PDX are scheduled in the 9 AM–10 AM hour over the period, against 193,820 across the whole day.
DL1203 is scheduled out of PDX at 9:45 AM, in the 9 AM–10 AM bank. Departures from PDX in that hour arrive on time 85.3% of the time against 83.1% across the airport’s whole day, so the hour DL1203 leaves in is an ordinary one for PDX and explains nothing about its record either way.
Both airport figures cover every destination from PDX, so they describe the slot, not this journey; the route comparison is above. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – August 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes DL1203 has flown
Carriers reassign flight numbers. DL1203 also served these 6 other city pairs in the period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| SLC→PDX Salt Lake City to Portland | June 7, 2024 – August 31, 2026 | 608 | 91.6% |
| MIA→JFK Miami to New York | June 8, 2025 – December 19, 2025 | 192 | 48.4% |
| MSP→LAS Minneapolis to Las Vegas | July 1, 2023 – June 6, 2024 | 252 | 84.5% |
| MSP→DTW Minneapolis to Detroit | April 9, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 28 | — |
| MSP→DCA Minneapolis to Washington | January 8, 2024 – March 9, 2024 | 53 | — |
| LAS→MSP Las Vegas to Minneapolis | July 1, 2023 – December 15, 2023 | 108 | 84.1% |
The figures above describe only PDX → SLC, the route DL1203 flies now.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
7 min late
against a median of 11 min early
Percentiles over 608 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering June 2024 – August 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL1270 | Delta Air Lines | 96.7% | 12 min early | 816 |
| DL1203 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 92.6% | 11 min early | 608 |
| DL1209 | Delta Air Lines | 86.7% | 7 min early | 776 |
Among all 3 departures on this route with at least 600 operations, DL1203 has the 2nd highest on-time rate, 4.1 points behind the best. Every departure here has at least 600 operations; the other rows are the most punctual on the route, not all of them.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 608 records of DL1203 operating PDX → SLC, 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 reported separately, not in the on-time rate.
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