Route profile
PDX→SLC
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Portland to Salt Lake City, 630 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 96% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 7,376 flights. How this is calculated
PDX → SLC arrives on time 89.1% of the time; the return trip, SLC → PDX, arrives on time 87.5% of the time.
PDX → SLC spends 21.0 minutes on the ground on a 630-mile trip: 13.8 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at PDX and 7.2 minutes from touchdown to gate at SLC.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
This route holds up about the same all year, a steadier seasonal pattern than 98% of 3,357 comparable routes.
93.1% on time in its best month (November) against 85.1% in its worst (January).
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 3,357 in the comparison.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
17 min late
against a median of 9 min early
Percentiles over 7,376 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at SLC after arriving from PDX.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 24% | High risk |
| 45 min | 11% | Some risk |
| 60 min | 6.8% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 3.6% | Low risk |
| 120 min | 2.3% | 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 0.62% of the time and diverts 0.07% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 7,325 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 17 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 7,376 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
PDX → SLC flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 94.2% of the time, against 84.9% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 9.3 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 96.6% on time from 1,127 flights
- 6 AM: too few flights to score
- 7 AM: 84.8% on time from 243 flights
- 8 AM: too few flights to score
- 9 AM: 89.4% on time from 558 flights
- 10 AM: 92.9% on time from 1,021 flights
- 11 AM: 88.3% on time from 180 flights
- 12 PM: too few flights to score
- 1 PM: 88.7% on time from 1,127 flights
- 2 PM: 93.3% on time from 136 flights
- 3 PM to 4 PM: too few flights to score
- 5 PM: 86.3% on time from 1,341 flights
- 6 PM: 80.5% on time from 449 flights
- 7 PM: 86.6% on time from 904 flights
- 8 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why PDX → SLC 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
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for PDX → SLC. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on PDX → SLC, at 54.1%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 94.2% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 84.9%.
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 | 5,213 | 91.3% | 0.73% | -10 min | 3.3% |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,944 | 85.2% | 0.26% | -6 min | 4.0% |
Delta Air Lines flew 72.8% of the 7,157 flights listed.
Delta Air Lines arrived on time 6.1 percentage points more often than SkyWest 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL1270 Delta Air Lines | 5:10 AM | 785 | 96.7% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 6.0 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 85.1%
- Feb: 90.4%
- Mar: 90.9%
- Apr: 92.0%
- May: 92.6%
- Jun: 86.7%
- Jul: 85.4%
- Aug: 85.8%
- Sep: 90.4%
- Oct: 91.4%
- Nov: 93.1%
- Dec: 87.7%
January is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 8.0 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 90.1% from 212 flights
- August 2023: 88.7% from 204 flights
- September 2023: 90.2% from 174 flights
- October 2023: 91.6% from 179 flights
- November 2023: 95.8% from 167 flights
- December 2023: 90.7% from 172 flights
- January 2024: 79.6% from 171 flights
- February 2024: 93.2% from 162 flights
- March 2024: 90.6% from 192 flights
- April 2024: 91.3% from 195 flights
- May 2024: 90.7% from 215 flights
- June 2024: 85.3% from 218 flights
- July 2024: 87.5% from 219 flights
- August 2024: 83.8% from 204 flights
- September 2024: 89.3% from 216 flights
- October 2024: 93.4% from 212 flights
- November 2024: 95.2% from 211 flights
- December 2024: 86.4% from 213 flights
- January 2025: 87.2% from 187 flights
- February 2025: 86.3% from 170 flights
- March 2025: 89.6% from 202 flights
- April 2025: 91.8% from 208 flights
- May 2025: 95.0% from 220 flights
- June 2025: 86.1% from 232 flights
- July 2025: 79.4% from 247 flights
- August 2025: 85.0% from 222 flights
- September 2025: 92.0% from 176 flights
- October 2025: 89.1% from 211 flights
- November 2025: 88.1% from 189 flights
- December 2025: 86.4% from 201 flights
- January 2026: 88.0% from 177 flights
- February 2026: 91.7% from 172 flights
- March 2026: 92.6% from 193 flights
- April 2026: 92.9% from 186 flights
- May 2026: 92.1% from 192 flights
- June 2026: 88.7% from 215 flights
- July 2026: 85.8% from 240 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 89.2% against 88.6% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 7,376 PDX → SLC 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