Route profile
MSP→PDX
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Minneapolis to Portland, 1,426 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 91% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 4,216 flights. How this is calculated
MSP → PDX arrives on time 84.2% of the time; the return trip, PDX → MSP, arrives on time 91.4% of the time, a 7.2-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
MSP → PDX spends 20.4 minutes on the ground on a 1,426-mile trip: 15.4 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at MSP and 5.0 minutes from touchdown to gate at PDX.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
Every airline on this route performs about the same, a narrower carrier gap than 98% of 2,692 comparable routes.
Delta Air Lines (84.3% on time) and Alaska Airlines (83.9%) are close together here.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 2,692 in the comparison.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
27 min late
against a median of 9 min early
Percentiles over 4,216 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at PDX after arriving from MSP.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 31% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 15% | High risk |
| 60 min | 8.9% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 4.5% | Low risk |
| 120 min | 2.4% | Low risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 0.47% of the time and diverts 0.09% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 4,192 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 27 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 4,216 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
MSP → PDX flights departing 9 AM–12 PM arrived on time 90.0% of the time, against 73.2% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 16.8 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 8 AM: too few flights to score
- 9 AM: 89.9% on time from 610 flights
- 10 AM: 90.7% on time from 152 flights
- 11 AM: 90.0% on time from 925 flights
- 12 PM to 1 PM: too few flights to score
- 2 PM: 85.0% on time from 253 flights
- 3 PM: 80.9% on time from 536 flights
- 4 PM to 5 PM: too few flights to score
- 6 PM: 78.6% on time from 979 flights
- 7 PM to 8 PM: too few flights to score
- 9 PM: 73.4% on time from 353 flights
- 10 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why MSP → PDX runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for MSP → PDX. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 4,002 | 84.3% | 0.42% | -9 min | 4.6% |
| Alaska Airlines | 214 | 83.9% | 1.40% | -8 min | 3.8% |
Delta Air Lines flew 94.9% of the 4,216 flights listed.
Carriers on this route performed within a couple of percentage points of each other.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Saturday is historically the most reliable day and Monday the least, a gap of 5.4 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 80.8%
- Feb: 79.0%
- Mar: 83.4%
- Apr: 93.2%
- May: 83.7%
- Jun: 77.4%
- Jul: 79.0%
- Aug: 88.4%
- Sep: 94.2%
- Oct: 90.4%
- Nov: 87.7%
- Dec: 74.7%
December is historically the weakest month and September the strongest, a spread of 19.5 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 81.3% from 139 flights
- August 2023: 90.5% from 137 flights
- September 2023: too few flights to score (108)
- October 2023: too few flights to score (110)
- November 2023: too few flights to score (102)
- December 2023: too few flights to score (93)
- January 2024: too few flights to score (70)
- February 2024: too few flights to score (66)
- March 2024: too few flights to score (87)
- April 2024: too few flights to score (89)
- May 2024: too few flights to score (116)
- June 2024: 57.8% from 135 flights
- July 2024: 72.5% from 140 flights
- August 2024: 83.1% from 130 flights
- September 2024: too few flights to score (110)
- October 2024: too few flights to score (115)
- November 2024: too few flights to score (106)
- December 2024: too few flights to score (96)
- January 2025: too few flights to score (74)
- February 2025: too few flights to score (70)
- March 2025: too few flights to score (92)
- April 2025: too few flights to score (90)
- May 2025: too few flights to score (110)
- June 2025: 89.1% from 138 flights
- July 2025: 74.0% from 150 flights
- August 2025: 91.3% from 138 flights
- September 2025: 95.3% from 127 flights
- October 2025: 86.0% from 151 flights
- November 2025: 85.3% from 143 flights
- December 2025: too few flights to score (119)
- January 2026: too few flights to score (83)
- February 2026: too few flights to score (78)
- March 2026: too few flights to score (102)
- April 2026: too few flights to score (117)
- May 2026: 91.5% from 141 flights
- June 2026: 84.0% from 163 flights
- July 2026: 86.1% from 181 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 82.8% against 85.8% in the 12 months before — declining by 3.0 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 4,216 MSP → PDX flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed