Route profile
SLC→PDX
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Salt Lake City to Portland, 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 95% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 7,377 flights. How this is calculated
SLC → PDX arrives on time 87.5% of the time; the return trip, PDX → SLC, arrives on time 89.1% of the time.
SLC → PDX spends 23.0 minutes on the ground on a 630-mile trip: 17.5 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at SLC and 5.5 minutes from touchdown to gate at PDX.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
This route stays close to typical even on its worst days, a smaller gap than 96% of 4,598 comparable routes.
A typical arrival is 8 min early, and the worst tenth are only 27 minutes worse than that.
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 4,598 in the comparison.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
19 min late
against a median of 8 min early
Percentiles over 7,377 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at PDX after arriving from SLC.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 27% | High risk |
| 45 min | 12% | Some risk |
| 60 min | 7.1% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 3.5% | Low risk |
| 120 min | 2.1% | 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 0.66% of the time and diverts 0.05% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 7,324 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 19 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 7,377 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
SLC → PDX flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 92.2% of the time, against 73.4% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 18.8 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 6 AM: too few flights to score
- 7 AM: 89.4% on time from 357 flights
- 8 AM: 92.7% on time from 1,594 flights
- 9 AM: 88.6% on time from 159 flights
- 10 AM: too few flights to score
- 11 AM: 87.9% on time from 1,153 flights
- 12 PM: 88.2% on time from 280 flights
- 1 PM: 83.3% on time from 121 flights
- 2 PM: too few flights to score
- 3 PM: 86.4% on time from 1,391 flights
- 4 PM: too few flights to score
- 5 PM: 84.9% on time from 736 flights
- 6 PM: too few flights to score
- 7 PM: 73.0% on time from 188 flights
- 8 PM: too few flights to score
- 9 PM: 86.7% on time from 301 flights
- 10 PM: 84.6% on time from 768 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why SLC → PDX runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
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 SLC → PDX. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
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 | 5,212 | 87.1% | 0.71% | -8 min | 3.7% |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,947 | 89.7% | 0.31% | -9 min | 2.7% |
Delta Air Lines flew 72.8% of the 7,159 flights listed.
SkyWest Airlines arrived on time 2.6 percentage points more often than Delta Air Lines 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL1209 Delta Air Lines | 11:20 AM | 783 | 86.9% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 5.4 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 81.2%
- Feb: 85.4%
- Mar: 87.4%
- Apr: 90.4%
- May: 90.7%
- Jun: 85.1%
- Jul: 84.1%
- Aug: 88.1%
- Sep: 91.3%
- Oct: 91.7%
- Nov: 90.9%
- Dec: 85.1%
January is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 10.5 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 87.3% from 212 flights
- August 2023: 89.7% from 204 flights
- September 2023: 88.5% from 174 flights
- October 2023: 90.5% from 179 flights
- November 2023: 94.6% from 167 flights
- December 2023: 91.2% from 172 flights
- January 2024: 73.1% from 171 flights
- February 2024: 88.8% from 161 flights
- March 2024: 84.4% from 192 flights
- April 2024: 89.2% from 195 flights
- May 2024: 87.9% from 215 flights
- June 2024: 82.5% from 218 flights
- July 2024: 82.3% from 219 flights
- August 2024: 85.4% from 205 flights
- September 2024: 92.5% from 216 flights
- October 2024: 94.3% from 212 flights
- November 2024: 91.9% from 211 flights
- December 2024: 80.8% from 213 flights
- January 2025: 83.3% from 187 flights
- February 2025: 78.6% from 170 flights
- March 2025: 89.1% from 202 flights
- April 2025: 91.8% from 208 flights
- May 2025: 91.8% from 220 flights
- June 2025: 86.5% from 232 flights
- July 2025: 79.7% from 247 flights
- August 2025: 89.1% from 222 flights
- September 2025: 92.6% from 176 flights
- October 2025: 90.0% from 211 flights
- November 2025: 86.5% from 189 flights
- December 2025: 84.4% from 201 flights
- January 2026: 86.8% from 177 flights
- February 2026: 88.8% from 172 flights
- March 2026: 88.5% from 194 flights
- April 2026: 90.2% from 186 flights
- May 2026: 92.6% from 192 flights
- June 2026: 86.4% from 215 flights
- July 2026: 87.7% from 240 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 88.6% against 87.2% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 7,377 SLC → 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