Route profile
PDX→PHX
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Portland to Phoenix, 1,009 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 76% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 11,800 flights. How this is calculated
PDX → PHX arrives on time 81.6% of the time; the return trip, PHX → PDX, arrives on time 80.8% of the time.
PDX → PHX spends 20.7 minutes on the ground on a 1,009-mile trip: 14.2 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at PDX and 6.5 minutes from touchdown to gate at PHX.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
Every day of the week performs about the same on this route, steadier than 97% of 4,467 comparable routes.
83.1% on time on the best day (Tuesday) against 79.6% on the worst (Thursday).
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 4,467 in the comparison.
Why PDX → PHX flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
PDX → PHX cancelled 62 of 11,800 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 190. The reason filed most often was the airline, 66.1% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 288 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 62 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
41 cancellations, 66.1% of the total.
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
19 cancellations, 30.6% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
2 cancellations, 3.2% 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. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
62 coded cancellations were recorded on PDX → PHX; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
32 min late
against a median of 5 min early
Percentiles over 11,800 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at PHX after arriving from PDX.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 37% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 18% | High risk |
| 60 min | 10% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 5.1% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 3.2% | 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 0.53% of the time and diverts 0.19% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 11,716 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 11,800 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
PDX → PHX flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 91.4% of the time, against 65.2% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 26.2 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 92.7% on time from 1,523 flights
- 6 AM: 94.8% on time from 271 flights
- 7 AM: 89.5% on time from 1,062 flights
- 8 AM: 90.1% on time from 699 flights
- 9 AM: 87.9% on time from 531 flights
- 10 AM: 84.6% on time from 776 flights
- 11 AM: 88.6% on time from 896 flights
- 12 PM: 84.0% on time from 309 flights
- 1 PM: 73.4% on time from 355 flights
- 2 PM: 77.9% on time from 1,038 flights
- 3 PM: 74.3% on time from 932 flights
- 4 PM: 64.5% on time from 277 flights
- 5 PM: 73.7% on time from 1,202 flights
- 6 PM: 74.9% on time from 683 flights
- 7 PM: 72.8% on time from 224 flights
- 8 PM: 71.1% on time from 570 flights
- 9 PM: 66.5% on time from 324 flights
- 10 PM: 62.2% on time from 128 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why PDX → PHX 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 → PHX. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on PDX → PHX, at 47.8%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 91.4% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 65.2%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
The harder-hit end is PHX, where the flight lands. Its figure counts departures from PHX, so it says more about how that airport copes than about this route. Bad weather cancels 3.9 times the normal rate at PHX against 2.2 times at PDX. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: PDX 1.7% against 0.8%, PHX 2.5% against 0.6%. Flights that did leave PHX in bad weather arrived on time 53.7% of the time, against 80.6% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | PDX | PHX |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 1.7% | 2.5% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 0.8% | 0.6% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 84.6% | 53.7% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 83.0% | 80.6% |
| Departures in bad weather | 11,286 | 6,215 |
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| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 708 | 1.5%about level | 2.1% |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,740 | 1.5%about level | 1.8% |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,681 | 2.4%about level | 2.0% |
| Alaska Airlines | 4,003 | 2.1%above the others | 1.2% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from PDX and PHX, 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), PHX, 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.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 3,933 | 79.3% | 0.28% | -2 min | 4.9% |
| Alaska Airlines | 3,658 | 82.1% | 0.77% | -4 min | 3.6% |
| American Airlines | 2,983 | 84.2% | 0.54% | -9 min | 6.7% |
| Frontier Airlines | 648 | 74.5% | 1.08% | -3 min | 10.2% |
| SkyWest Airlines | 451 | 86.9% | 0.00% | -6 min | 4.4% |
Southwest Airlines flew 33.7% of the 11,673 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 1.08% of its flights here against 0.00% for SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest Airlines arrived on time 12.4 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA2658 American Airlines | 5:05 AM | 910 | 90.5% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Thursday the least, a gap of 3.5 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 84.7%
- Feb: 86.6%
- Mar: 84.5%
- Apr: 84.4%
- May: 83.7%
- Jun: 75.8%
- Jul: 72.5%
- Aug: 76.2%
- Sep: 84.2%
- Oct: 81.3%
- Nov: 83.0%
- Dec: 82.8%
July is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 14.1 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 76.5% from 265 flights
- August 2023: 77.8% from 263 flights
- September 2023: 81.9% from 293 flights
- October 2023: 81.8% from 319 flights
- November 2023: 86.8% from 302 flights
- December 2023: 89.3% from 299 flights
- January 2024: 79.3% from 275 flights
- February 2024: 85.3% from 307 flights
- March 2024: 84.0% from 406 flights
- April 2024: 83.2% from 381 flights
- May 2024: 84.6% from 326 flights
- June 2024: 77.8% from 276 flights
- July 2024: 68.1% from 282 flights
- August 2024: 73.4% from 312 flights
- September 2024: 89.8% from 316 flights
- October 2024: 86.2% from 326 flights
- November 2024: 89.7% from 331 flights
- December 2024: 80.0% from 360 flights
- January 2025: 90.5% from 330 flights
- February 2025: 89.0% from 321 flights
- March 2025: 85.0% from 409 flights
- April 2025: 84.0% from 383 flights
- May 2025: 83.1% from 340 flights
- June 2025: 76.0% from 316 flights
- July 2025: 76.4% from 312 flights
- August 2025: 77.9% from 273 flights
- September 2025: 79.9% from 254 flights
- October 2025: 75.2% from 296 flights
- November 2025: 72.2% from 310 flights
- December 2025: 80.0% from 344 flights
- January 2026: 82.8% from 299 flights
- February 2026: 85.3% from 279 flights
- March 2026: 84.3% from 410 flights
- April 2026: 86.4% from 338 flights
- May 2026: 83.4% from 314 flights
- June 2026: 73.7% from 304 flights
- July 2026: 69.4% from 329 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 79.3% against 83.7% in the 12 months before — declining by 4.4 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 11,800 PDX → PHX 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