Route profile
SFO→PDX
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from San Francisco to Portland, 550 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 70% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 10,693 flights. How this is calculated
SFO → PDX arrives on time 80.0% of the time; the return trip, PDX → SFO, arrives on time 72.8% of the time, a 7.2-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
SFO → PDX spends 25.5 minutes on the ground on a 550-mile trip: 20.8 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at SFO and 4.7 minutes from touchdown to gate at PDX.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
The airline matters unusually much on this route, a wider carrier-to-carrier gap than 99% of 2,692 comparable routes.
United Airlines arrived on time 83.1% of the time, against 56.3% for Frontier Airlines, flying the exact same route.
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 2,692 in the comparison.
Why SFO → PDX flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
SFO → PDX cancelled 75 of 10,693 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 143. The reason filed most often was the airline, 61.3% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 232 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 75 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.
46 cancellations, 61.3% of the total.
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
19 cancellations, 25.3% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
10 cancellations, 13.3% 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.
75 coded cancellations were recorded on SFO → PDX; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
38 min late
against a median of 6 min early
Percentiles over 10,693 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at PDX after arriving from SFO.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 35% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 19% | High risk |
| 60 min | 12% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 6.2% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 3.4% | 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 0.70% 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 10,617 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 38 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 10,693 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
SFO → PDX flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 91.4% of the time, against 75.8% for 3–6 PM departures, a gap of 15.6 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 95.1% on time from 228 flights
- 7 AM: 94.0% on time from 500 flights
- 8 AM: 89.4% on time from 1,087 flights
- 9 AM: 84.0% on time from 297 flights
- 10 AM: 79.6% on time from 951 flights
- 11 AM: 68.5% on time from 638 flights
- 12 PM: 76.1% on time from 631 flights
- 1 PM: 79.6% on time from 653 flights
- 2 PM: 79.3% on time from 558 flights
- 3 PM: 73.4% on time from 351 flights
- 4 PM: 75.7% on time from 1,372 flights
- 5 PM: 79.1% on time from 279 flights
- 6 PM: 81.6% on time from 1,185 flights
- 7 PM: 78.4% on time from 577 flights
- 8 PM: 72.8% on time from 220 flights
- 9 PM: 69.4% on time from 330 flights
- 10 PM: 81.3% on time from 797 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why SFO → PDX 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 SFO → PDX. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on SFO → PDX, at 56.0%: 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 3–6 PM departures 75.8%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of SFO to PDX: 1.7 times the normal rate at SFO and 2.2 times at PDX. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: SFO 1.5% against 0.9%, PDX 1.7% against 0.8%. Flights that did leave SFO in bad weather arrived on time 73.0% of the time, against 79.8% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | SFO | PDX |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 1.5% | 1.7% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 0.9% | 0.8% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 73.0% | 84.6% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 79.8% | 83.0% |
| Departures in bad weather | 36,006 | 11,286 |
Of the carriers on this route, United Airlines (1.0% cancelled against 1.9% for the other carriers at SFO) cancelled the fewest departures from SFO in bad weather and SkyWest Airlines (3.0% cancelled against 1.2% for the other carriers at SFO) the most.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at SFO
All departures from SFO| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 13,903 | 1.0%below the others | 1.9% |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,057 | 1.8%about level | 1.5% |
| Alaska Airlines | 3,124 | 1.8%about level | 1.4% |
| SkyWest Airlines | 7,724 | 3.0%above the others | 1.2% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from SFO and PDX, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from SFO on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: SFO (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.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 5,385 | 83.1% | 0.50% | -8 min | 5.7% |
| Alaska Airlines | 3,412 | 78.3% | 0.88% | -5 min | 6.0% |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,634 | 77.1% | 0.73% | -3 min | 7.8% |
| Frontier Airlines | 262 | 56.3% | 2.29% | 8 min | 17.2% |
United Airlines flew 50.4% of the 10,693 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 2.29% of its flights here against 0.50% for United Airlines.
United Airlines arrived on time 26.8 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Thursday the least, a gap of 10.2 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 85.8%
- Feb: 78.9%
- Mar: 79.5%
- Apr: 76.4%
- May: 73.5%
- Jun: 73.4%
- Jul: 76.8%
- Aug: 82.7%
- Sep: 84.6%
- Oct: 87.3%
- Nov: 80.8%
- Dec: 80.2%
June is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 13.9 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 80.2% from 272 flights
- August 2023: 81.4% from 265 flights
- September 2023: 87.3% from 284 flights
- October 2023: 90.4% from 270 flights
- November 2023: 86.4% from 264 flights
- December 2023: 82.2% from 242 flights
- January 2024: 79.9% from 222 flights
- February 2024: 71.4% from 249 flights
- March 2024: 65.9% from 272 flights
- April 2024: 68.7% from 245 flights
- May 2024: 71.2% from 291 flights
- June 2024: 67.3% from 250 flights
- July 2024: 74.0% from 351 flights
- August 2024: 81.1% from 351 flights
- September 2024: 79.4% from 317 flights
- October 2024: 89.3% from 356 flights
- November 2024: 78.1% from 346 flights
- December 2024: 79.8% from 333 flights
- January 2025: 89.9% from 289 flights
- February 2025: 80.3% from 262 flights
- March 2025: 82.4% from 290 flights
- April 2025: 86.2% from 270 flights
- May 2025: 81.6% from 293 flights
- June 2025: 83.4% from 301 flights
- July 2025: 81.2% from 315 flights
- August 2025: 85.5% from 327 flights
- September 2025: 87.2% from 328 flights
- October 2025: 82.8% from 344 flights
- November 2025: 78.9% from 280 flights
- December 2025: 78.6% from 235 flights
- January 2026: 85.8% from 254 flights
- February 2026: 84.6% from 254 flights
- March 2026: 89.2% from 289 flights
- April 2026: 73.8% from 300 flights
- May 2026: 67.9% from 299 flights
- June 2026: 68.2% from 289 flights
- July 2026: 72.4% from 294 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 79.6% against 82.7% in the 12 months before — declining by 3.1 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 10,693 SFO → 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
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