SEA → PDX Flight Reliability

Right now

Origin · SEANo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 08:53 UTC

Seattle airport profile →

Destination · PDXNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 08:53 UTC

Portland airport profile →

Route reliability

July 2023 – July 2026

Route Reliability Score

78/ 100Strong

Better than 84% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)

Calculated from 16,049 flights. How this is calculated

On-time arrivals

80.7%

12,876 of 15,951

Cancellation rate

0.60%

96 cancelled

Median arrival delay

-4 min

Average 3.9 min

Severe delays

4.0%

60+ minutes late

Delay when late

48 min

Average, when 15+ min late

Flights analyzed

16,049

3 carriers

SEA → PDX arrives on time 80.7% of the time; the return trip, PDX → SEA, arrives on time 85.9% of the time, a 5.2-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.

SEA → PDX spends 27.2 minutes on the ground on a 129-mile trip: 22.2 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at SEA and 5.1 minutes from touchdown to gate at PDX.

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

Why SEA → PDX flights are cancelled

July 2023 – July 2026

SEA → PDX cancelled 96 of 16,049 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 167. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 49.0% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 341 scheduled flights.

Share of cancellations

Weather49.0%

Airline35.4%

Air traffic15.6%

Security0.0%

Of 96 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.

What each reason means

Extreme weather1 in 341

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

47 cancellations, 49.0% of the total.

The airline1 in 472

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

34 cancellations, 35.4% of the total.

The air traffic system1 in 1,070

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

15 cancellations, 15.6% 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.

96 coded cancellations were recorded on SEA → PDX; the section appears from 50.

When it goes wrong

July 2023 – July 2026

One arrival in ten is worse than

30 min late

against a median of 4 min early

Arrived an hour or more late4.0%

Typical delay when late48 min

Cancelled0.60%

Landed somewhere else0.01%

Percentiles over 16,049 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.

Will your connection be tight enough?

Layovers at PDX after arriving from SEA.

Connection buffer and chance of missing by layover length, SEA → PDX arrivals
Connection time	Chance of missing	Reads as
30 min	39%	Likely to miss
45 min	18%	High risk
60 min	9.9%	Some risk
90 min	4.0%	Low risk
120 min	2.0%	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 0.60% of the time and diverts 0.01% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.

Chance of missing is the share of 15,951 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 30 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 16,049 operations.

Any other layover length: connection checker.

Best time to fly

SEA → PDX flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 90.4% of the time, against 72.0% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 18.4 percentage points.

By day and hour

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

Hour of departure matters more than day of the week: hourly averages sit a typical 6.5 points from the route-wide rate, weekday averages 2.1 points.

On-time arrival rate for SEA to PDX by weekday and scheduled departure hour, local time. Each button reads out one slot.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
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
7 PM–8 PM
8 PM–9 PM
9 PM–10 PM
10 PM–11 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 7 AM and after 11 PM (1,450 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 SEA to PDX. A dash means fewer than 120 flights, which are not scored.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
7 AM–8 AM	87.4% on time143 flights	90.6% on time139 flights	93.6% on time144 flights	93.8% on time146 flights	90.8% on time142 flights	88.6% on time141 flights	89.4% on time143 flights
8 AM–9 AM	71 flights, too few to score	64 flights, too few to score	68 flights, too few to score	69 flights, too few to score	68 flights, too few to score	59 flights, too few to score	55 flights, too few to score
9 AM–10 AM	88.1% on time135 flights	90.5% on time137 flights	90.6% on time141 flights	86.4% on time140 flights	85.0% on time128 flights	86.6% on time127 flights	88.1% on time126 flights
10 AM–11 AM	44 flights, too few to score	42 flights, too few to score	40 flights, too few to score	44 flights, too few to score	46 flights, too few to score	46 flights, too few to score	41 flights, too few to score
11 AM–12 PM	80.5% on time212 flights	79.2% on time207 flights	81.9% on time206 flights	76.0% on time208 flights	74.9% on time208 flights	73.5% on time192 flights	80.4% on time185 flights
12 PM–1 PM	97 flights, too few to score	103 flights, too few to score	99 flights, too few to score	96 flights, too few to score	95 flights, too few to score	85 flights, too few to score	106 flights, too few to score
1 PM–2 PM	91.2% on time137 flights	89.1% on time139 flights	88.0% on time133 flights	87.1% on time133 flights	85.5% on time131 flights	86.8% on time130 flights	84.3% on time140 flights
2 PM–3 PM	46 flights, too few to score	36 flights, too few to score	38 flights, too few to score	42 flights, too few to score	46 flights, too few to score	32 flights, too few to score	48 flights, too few to score
3 PM–4 PM	79.1% on time148 flights	76.4% on time141 flights	82.9% on time142 flights	77.3% on time141 flights	74.3% on time146 flights	80.3% on time137 flights	76.7% on time146 flights
4 PM–5 PM	85.9% on time151 flights	84.4% on time154 flights	81.2% on time151 flights	75.5% on time151 flights	79.7% on time148 flights	81.1% on time128 flights	85.7% on time148 flights
5 PM–6 PM	76.2% on time207 flights	85.9% on time202 flights	83.7% on time200 flights	76.6% on time198 flights	82.3% on time205 flights	82.8% on time152 flights	77.7% on time189 flights
6 PM–7 PM	97 flights, too few to score	88 flights, too few to score	84 flights, too few to score	95 flights, too few to score	96 flights, too few to score	66 flights, too few to score	90 flights, too few to score
7 PM–8 PM	77.5% on time206 flights	86.5% on time208 flights	80.6% on time208 flights	76.1% on time205 flights	76.0% on time205 flights	86.6% on time127 flights	79.9% on time194 flights
8 PM–9 PM	75 flights, too few to score	72 flights, too few to score	65 flights, too few to score	87 flights, too few to score	92 flights, too few to score	61 flights, too few to score	76 flights, too few to score
9 PM–10 PM	71.1% on time173 flights	79.2% on time184 flights	85.6% on time182 flights	71.9% on time168 flights	73.9% on time154 flights	83.9% on time199 flights	70.2% on time161 flights
10 PM–11 PM	59.7% on time213 flights	76.1% on time216 flights	71.7% on time215 flights	67.8% on time215 flights	65.9% on time213 flights	68.4% on time190 flights	58.6% on time215 flights

By departure window

5–9 AM90.4%

9 AM–12 PM82.6%

12–3 PM85.3%

3–6 PM80.3%

6–9 PM79.3%

9 PM–5 AM72.0%

By departure hour

12 AM

3 AM

6 AM

9 AM

12 PM

3 PM

6 PM

9 PM

Why SEA → PDX runs late

July 2023 – July 2026

The airline47.8%

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

Late-arriving aircraft25.8%

the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late

Air traffic control14.0%

airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control

Weather12.0%

weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically

Security0.4%

screening or terminal security incidents

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

How this route holds up in bad weather

July 2023 – July 2026

Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of SEA to PDX: 1.9 times the normal rate at SEA and 2.2 times at PDX. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: SEA 1.5% against 0.8%, PDX 1.7% against 0.8%. Flights that did leave SEA in bad weather arrived on time 75.4% of the time, against 79.3% in normal hours.

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026

Departures from SEA and PDX in hours of bad weather and in normal hours
Departures from	SEA	PDX
Cancelled in bad weather	1.5%	1.7%
Cancelled in normal hours	0.8%	0.8%
Arrived on time, bad weather	75.4%	84.6%
Arrived on time, normal hours	79.3%	83.0%
Departures in bad weather	43,416	11,286

Of the carriers on this route, Delta Air Lines (1.1% cancelled against 1.6% for the other carriers at SEA) cancelled the fewest departures from SEA in bad weather and Alaska Airlines (1.8% cancelled against 1.2% for the other carriers at SEA) the most.

This route’s airlines in bad weather at SEA

All departures from SEA

Cancellation rates in bad weather at SEA for the airlines that fly SEA to PDX, against the other carriers at SEA in the same months
Airline	Bad-weather departures	Cancelled	Other carriers
Delta Air Lines	9,020	1.1%below the others	1.6%
SkyWest Airlines	6,711	1.9%above the others	1.5%
Alaska Airlines	20,261	1.8%above the others	1.2%

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

Weather source and limits. In full: SEA (airlines), PDX, 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
SkyWest Airlines	9,950	84.9%	0.45%	-6 min	3.9%
Alaska Airlines	4,880	72.5%	0.98%	1 min	4.2%
Delta Air Lines	1,219	79.9%	0.25%	-5 min	4.1%

SkyWest Airlines flew 62.0% of the 16,049 flights listed.

SkyWest Airlines arrived on time 12.4 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.

Flights on this route
Flight	Scheduled	Operations	On time
OO3913 SkyWest Airlines	5:50 PM	770	84.5%

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

Mon79.4%

Tue84.2%

Wed82.9%

Thu78.5%

Fri79.2%

Sat81.9%

Sun79.1%

Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Thursday the least, a gap of 5.7 percentage points.

By month

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

June is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 13.8 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 83.1% against 80.2% in the 12 months before — improving by 2.9 percentage points.

Data and methodology

Calculated by FlyerIntel from 16,049 SEA → 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

Analysis last recomputed September 26, 2026

SEA airport PDX airport Return direction PDX → SEA

SEA→PDX

Right now

Route reliability

Why SEA → PDX 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 SEA → PDX 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 SEA

Airlines on this route

Flights on this route

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

By month

Reliability over time

Data and methodology