Route profile
PDX→DFW
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Portland to Dallas–Fort Worth, 1,616 miles.
Right now
Weather conditions are strongly associated with delays and cancellations.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 33% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 7,366 flights. How this is calculated
PDX → DFW arrives on time 78.4% of the time; the return trip, DFW → PDX, arrives on time 67.9% of the time, a 10.5-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
PDX → DFW spends 27.9 minutes on the ground on a 1,616-mile trip: 14.4 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at PDX and 13.4 minutes from touchdown to gate at DFW.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What sets this route apart
Where PDX to DFW differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
PDX to DFW struggles most at 11 AM: 70.0% of its flights scheduled then arrive on time, 8.1 points behind the 78.1% on routes of similar length at the same hour. Against all other routes the gap is 11 points.
PDX to DFW is at its best against routes of similar length for flights scheduled at 2 PM: 79.7% arrive on time, 6.4 points ahead of the 73.3% those routes manage at that hour. Against all other routes the gap is 5.1 points.
Saturday is the day PDX to DFW slips furthest against routes of similar length, 74.1% on time where they average 78.8%, 4.7 points lower. Against all other routes the gap is 5 points.
PDX to DFW holds up on Fridays better than routes of similar length do: 80.6% on time to their 76.4%, a 4.2 points lead. Against all other routes the gap is 4.4 points.
February is kinder to PDX to DFW than to routes of similar length: 85.7% on time against 81.5%, 4.2 points better. Against all other routes the gap is 4.3 points.
PDX to DFW against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 11 AM departures | 70.0% | routes of similar length | 78.1% | −8.1 pts | 806 here, 90,497 there |
| Hour: 2 PM departures | 79.7% | routes of similar length | 73.3% | +6.4 pts | 295 here, 84,998 there |
| Weekday: Saturday | 74.1% | routes of similar length | 78.8% | −4.7 pts | 1,012 here, 209,752 there |
| Weekday: Friday | 80.6% | routes of similar length | 76.4% | +4.2 pts | 1,048 here, 237,783 there |
| Month: February | 85.7% | routes of similar length | 81.5% | +4.2 pts | 475 here, 108,073 there |
Each comparison pools the flights of other routes, with this route’s own left out. Similar length means within 15% of this route’s 1,616 miles, with at least 5 such routes. A bucket is set against the most comparable group that has enough flights: similar length, then the same origin (at least 3 routes), then all other routes. Hours, weekdays and months appear only where both sides have 120 completed flights, and airlines where both have 600. The gap must be at least 2 points and 2 standard errors, and only the largest gap each way is kept per measure. These are differences in the flights counted, not causes.
Why PDX → DFW flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
PDX → DFW cancelled 142 of 7,366 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 52. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 81.7% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 64 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 142 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
116 cancellations, 81.7% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
26 cancellations, 18.3% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
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. With only one or two carriers on the route, the split mostly reflects how they file. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
142 coded cancellations were recorded on PDX → DFW; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
42 min late
against a median of 6 min early
Percentiles over 7,366 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at DFW after arriving from PDX.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 37% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 21% | High risk |
| 60 min | 13% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 6.9% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 4.5% | 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 1.93% of the time and diverts 0.58% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 7,181 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 42 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 7,366 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
PDX → DFW flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 85.2% of the time, against 73.2% for 12–3 PM departures, a gap of 12.0 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM: 75.4% on time from 407 flights
- 1 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 86.5% on time from 1,044 flights
- 6 AM: 88.0% on time from 448 flights
- 7 AM: 82.7% on time from 1,106 flights
- 8 AM: too few flights to score
- 9 AM: 80.8% on time from 219 flights
- 10 AM: 85.5% on time from 251 flights
- 11 AM: 70.0% on time from 823 flights
- 12 PM: 77.1% on time from 673 flights
- 1 PM: 67.8% on time from 850 flights
- 2 PM: 79.7% on time from 307 flights
- 3 PM to 10 PM: too few flights to score
- 11 PM: 76.8% on time from 1,013 flights
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why PDX → DFW runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
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
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 PDX → DFW. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on PDX → DFW, at 42.1%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 85.2% of the time and 12–3 PM departures 73.2%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 5,692 | 79.3% | 2.09% | -8 min | 7.7% |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,565 | 76.4% | 1.02% | -2 min | 4.5% |
American Airlines flew 78.4% of the 7,257 flights listed. American Airlines cancelled 2.09% of its flights here against 1.02% for Alaska Airlines.
American Airlines arrived on time 2.9 percentage points more often than Alaska Airlines on this route.
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
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Saturday the least, a gap of 6.8 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 75.9%
- Feb: 85.7%
- Mar: 79.6%
- Apr: 78.5%
- May: 72.7%
- Jun: 71.0%
- Jul: 74.0%
- Aug: 74.1%
- Sep: 83.6%
- Oct: 84.4%
- Nov: 82.2%
- Dec: 83.4%
June is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 14.7 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 76.7% from 202 flights
- August 2023: 71.4% from 207 flights
- September 2023: 86.3% from 171 flights
- October 2023: 84.8% from 175 flights
- November 2023: 89.7% from 174 flights
- December 2023: 88.9% from 180 flights
- January 2024: 64.8% from 175 flights
- February 2024: 86.0% from 164 flights
- March 2024: 74.1% from 178 flights
- April 2024: 76.9% from 181 flights
- May 2024: 67.0% from 225 flights
- June 2024: 72.2% from 253 flights
- July 2024: 66.3% from 261 flights
- August 2024: 77.8% from 246 flights
- September 2024: 82.9% from 216 flights
- October 2024: 84.2% from 204 flights
- November 2024: 75.9% from 199 flights
- December 2024: 75.9% from 221 flights
- January 2025: 81.3% from 182 flights
- February 2025: 87.1% from 155 flights
- March 2025: 78.1% from 180 flights
- April 2025: 74.6% from 180 flights
- May 2025: 71.6% from 202 flights
- June 2025: 68.2% from 225 flights
- July 2025: 74.9% from 230 flights
- August 2025: 72.6% from 241 flights
- September 2025: 82.1% from 198 flights
- October 2025: 84.3% from 225 flights
- November 2025: 81.7% from 202 flights
- December 2025: 86.3% from 212 flights
- January 2026: 81.7% from 169 flights
- February 2026: 84.0% from 157 flights
- March 2026: 86.3% from 186 flights
- April 2026: 83.7% from 193 flights
- May 2026: 80.1% from 203 flights
- June 2026: 72.9% from 196 flights
- July 2026: 80.3% from 198 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 81.2% against 77.4% in the 12 months before — improving by 3.8 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 7,366 PDX → DFW 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