PDX → DEN Flight Reliability

Right now

Origin · PDXNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 09:53 UTC

Portland airport profile →

Destination · DENNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 09:53 UTC

Denver airport profile →

Route reliability

July 2023 – July 2026

Route Reliability Score

78/ 100Strong

Better than 83% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)

Calculated from 13,768 flights. How this is calculated

On-time arrivals

82.6%

11,252 of 13,620

Cancellation rate

0.67%

92 cancelled

Median arrival delay

-6 min

Average 2.7 min

Severe delays

5.0%

60+ minutes late

Delay when late

57 min

Average, when 15+ min late

Flights analyzed

13,768

4 carriers

PDX → DEN arrives on time 82.6% of the time; the return trip, DEN → PDX, arrives on time 75.6% of the time, a 7.0-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.

PDX → DEN spends 22.7 minutes on the ground on a 991-mile trip: 13.2 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at PDX and 9.5 minutes from touchdown to gate at DEN.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026

Why PDX → DEN flights are cancelled

July 2023 – July 2026

PDX → DEN cancelled 92 of 13,768 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 150. The reason filed most often was the airline, 48.9% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 306 scheduled flights.

Share of cancellations

Airline48.9%

Weather38.0%

Air traffic13.0%

Security0.0%

Of 92 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.

What each reason means

The airline1 in 306

Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.

45 cancellations, 48.9% of the total.

Extreme weather1 in 393

Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.

35 cancellations, 38.0% of the total.

The air traffic system1 in 1,147

Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.

12 cancellations, 13.0% of the total.

Security—

A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.

0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.

Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.

92 coded cancellations were recorded on PDX → DEN; the section appears from 50.

When it goes wrong

July 2023 – July 2026

One arrival in ten is worse than

32 min late

against a median of 6 min early

Arrived an hour or more late5.0%

Typical delay when late57 min

Cancelled0.67%

Landed somewhere else0.41%

Percentiles over 13,768 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.

Will your connection be tight enough?

Layovers at DEN after arriving from PDX.

Connection buffer and chance of missing by layover length, PDX → DEN arrivals
Connection time	Chance of missing	Reads as
30 min	34%	Likely to miss
45 min	17%	High risk
60 min	10%	Some risk
90 min	4.9%	Low risk
120 min	2.9%	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 0.67% of the time and diverts 0.41% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.

Chance of missing is the share of 13,620 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 32 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 13,768 operations.

Any other layover length: connection checker.

Best time to fly

PDX → DEN flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 91.9% of the time, against 73.7% for 3–6 PM departures, a gap of 18.2 percentage points.

By day and hour

On-time arrival rate for each weekday and scheduled departure hour, in local time at the departure airport (PDX).

Hour of departure matters more than day of the week: hourly averages sit a typical 9.7 points from the route-wide rate, weekday averages 1.5 points.

On-time arrival rate for PDX to DEN by weekday and scheduled departure hour, local time. Each button reads out one slot.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
5 AM–6 AM
6 AM–7 AM
7 AM–8 AM
8 AM–9 AM
9 AM–10 AM
10 AM–11 AM
11 AM–12 PM
12 PM–1 PM
1 PM–2 PM
2 PM–3 PM
3 PM–4 PM
4 PM–5 PM
5 PM–6 PM
6 PM–7 PM

On-time rate, % · stronger color, fewer on time

50–59
60–69
70–79
80–89
90–99

Fewer than 120 flights, not scored

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · On time is arrival within 15 minutes of schedule. Cells round to whole percentages; the table shows one decimal.

No slot is named best or worst: too few reach 500 flights. Departures before 5 AM and after 7 PM (987 flights) are not drawn: no slot in those hours has enough flights to score.

View as tableHide table

On-time arrival rate (%) with flights beneath, by scheduled departure hour and weekday for PDX to DEN. A dash means fewer than 120 flights, which are not scored.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
5 AM–6 AM	96.8% on time311 flights	95.7% on time255 flights	95.6% on time253 flights	95.7% on time309 flights	92.8% on time309 flights	94.6% on time282 flights	96.0% on time304 flights
6 AM–7 AM	76 flights, too few to score	99 flights, too few to score	102 flights, too few to score	75 flights, too few to score	75 flights, too few to score	111 flights, too few to score	76 flights, too few to score
7 AM–8 AM	91.4% on time163 flights	84.3% on time135 flights	79.8% on time130 flights	86.1% on time167 flights	89.1% on time176 flights	100 flights, too few to score	90.8% on time132 flights
8 AM–9 AM	91.8% on time232 flights	92.4% on time231 flights	93.4% on time226 flights	93.6% on time236 flights	91.8% on time233 flights	92.7% on time207 flights	94.8% on time214 flights
9 AM–10 AM	64 flights, too few to score	73 flights, too few to score	70 flights, too few to score	53 flights, too few to score	54 flights, too few to score	65 flights, too few to score	85 flights, too few to score
10 AM–11 AM	73 flights, too few to score	71 flights, too few to score	75 flights, too few to score	78 flights, too few to score	76 flights, too few to score	49 flights, too few to score	71 flights, too few to score
11 AM–12 PM	99 flights, too few to score	92 flights, too few to score	95 flights, too few to score	94 flights, too few to score	95 flights, too few to score	87 flights, too few to score	90 flights, too few to score
12 PM–1 PM	81.8% on time168 flights	73.7% on time161 flights	77.6% on time165 flights	81.6% on time177 flights	75.7% on time181 flights	82.1% on time148 flights	83.3% on time165 flights
1 PM–2 PM	116 flights, too few to score	80.6% on time142 flights	75.4% on time138 flights	109 flights, too few to score	108 flights, too few to score	76.6% on time138 flights	113 flights, too few to score
2 PM–3 PM	60.2% on time132 flights	105 flights, too few to score	105 flights, too few to score	59.0% on time142 flights	64.8% on time126 flights	64 flights, too few to score	113 flights, too few to score
3 PM–4 PM	73.0% on time126 flights	90 flights, too few to score	93 flights, too few to score	116 flights, too few to score	71.3% on time130 flights	96 flights, too few to score	70.8% on time138 flights
4 PM–5 PM	76.4% on time142 flights	79.7% on time155 flights	80.4% on time151 flights	76.6% on time138 flights	71.5% on time142 flights	81.3% on time142 flights	82.7% on time134 flights
5 PM–6 PM	107 flights, too few to score	51 flights, too few to score	52 flights, too few to score	103 flights, too few to score	107 flights, too few to score	46 flights, too few to score	66 flights, too few to score
6 PM–7 PM	117 flights, too few to score	86 flights, too few to score	78.8% on time139 flights	76.2% on time132 flights	79.2% on time123 flights	79 flights, too few to score	78.8% on time136 flights

By departure window

5–9 AM91.9%

9 AM–12 PM86.1%

12–3 PM74.9%

3–6 PM73.7%

6–9 PM76.3%

9 PM–5 AM74.3%

By departure hour

12 AM

3 AM

6 AM

9 AM

12 PM

3 PM

6 PM

9 PM

Why PDX → DEN runs late

July 2023 – July 2026

Late-arriving aircraft40.5%

the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late

Air traffic control31.4%

airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control

The airline25.6%

crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control

Weather2.3%

weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically

Security0.2%

screening or terminal security incidents

Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for PDX → DEN. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.

Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on PDX → DEN, at 40.5%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 91.9% of the time and 3–6 PM departures 73.7%.

How this route holds up in bad weather

July 2023 – July 2026

The harder-hit end is DEN, where the flight lands. Its figure counts departures from DEN, so it says more about how that airport copes than about this route. Bad weather cancels 4.0 times the normal rate at DEN against 2.2 times at PDX. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: PDX 1.7% against 0.8%, DEN 2.8% against 0.7%. Flights that did leave DEN in bad weather arrived on time 51.5% of the time, against 78.8% in normal hours.

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026

Departures from PDX and DEN in hours of bad weather and in normal hours
Departures from	PDX	DEN
Cancelled in bad weather	1.7%	2.8%
Cancelled in normal hours	0.8%	0.7%
Arrived on time, bad weather	84.6%	51.5%
Arrived on time, normal hours	83.0%	78.8%
Departures in bad weather	11,286	92,610

Alaska Airlines (2.1% cancelled against 1.2% for the other carriers at PDX) cancelled more departures from PDX in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly better. One more carrier flies this route but has too few bad-weather departures from PDX to compare.

This route’s airlines in bad weather at PDX

All departures from PDX

Cancellation rates in bad weather at PDX for the airlines that fly PDX to DEN, against the other carriers at PDX in the same months
Airline	Bad-weather departures	Cancelled	Other carriers
United Airlines	1,275	1.4%about level	1.8%
Southwest Airlines	1,740	1.5%about level	1.8%
Alaska Airlines	4,003	2.1%above the others	1.2%

These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from PDX and DEN, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from PDX on every route.

Weather source and limits. In full: PDX (airlines), DEN, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.

Airlines on this route

Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.

Airlines on this route
Carrier	Flights	On time	Cancelled	Median delay	Severe
United Airlines	5,721	89.2%	0.73%	-12 min	3.9%
Southwest Airlines	5,142	77.3%	0.35%	-1 min	5.4%
Alaska Airlines	1,545	80.3%	1.10%	-5 min	5.4%
Frontier Airlines	1,342	78.0%	1.12%	-2 min	7.2%

United Airlines flew 41.6% of the 13,750 flights listed.

United Airlines arrived on time 11.9 percentage points more often than Southwest Airlines on this route.

Flights on this route

Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.

Flights on this route
Flight	Scheduled	Operations	On time
F91790 Frontier Airlines	6:05 AM	843	79.8%
UA459 United Airlines	5:00 AM	798	96.2%

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

Mon81.8%

Tue83.5%

Wed82.6%

Thu81.8%

Fri80.1%

Sat85.1%

Sun84.1%

Saturday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 5.0 percentage points.

By month

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

June is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 15.0 percentage points.

Reliability over time

July 2023 – July 2026

24

25

26

Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 82.5% against 81.6% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.

Data and methodology

Calculated by FlyerIntel from 13,768 PDX → DEN 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

Analysis last recomputed September 26, 2026

PDX airport DEN airport Return direction DEN → PDX

PDX→DEN

Right now

Route reliability

Why PDX → DEN flights are cancelled

Share of cancellations

What each reason means

When it goes wrong

Will your connection be tight enough?

Best time to fly

By day and hour

By departure window

By departure hour

Why PDX → DEN runs late

How this route holds up in bad weather

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

This route’s airlines in bad weather at PDX

Airlines on this route

Flights on this route

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

By month

Reliability over time

Data and methodology