Phoenix, AZ · departure reliability

PHX

Phoenix Sky Harbor International

Departures: 198,019
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Carriers: 9
US rank: #5 by volume

Terminal building and aircraft stands at a US airport

Phoenix

Phoenix Sky Harbor International lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 198,019 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 10,637 at 86.1% on time.

Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the nine carriers covered here at 86.1% on time across 10,637 flights.

On time

77.9%

Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination

Avg delay

63 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

0.87%

National rate is 1.89%

Best carrier

Delta

86.1% on time here

These figures cover 198,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Carrier by carrier

Which airlines run best out of PHX

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 86.1% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 70.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,102 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier departing PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Southwest Airlines	66,973	73.2%	49 min	0.61%	C+
American Airlines	56,697	78.5%	71 min	1.13%	B
SkyWest Airlines	27,507	80.3%	78 min	0.84%	B+
Envoy Air	11,150	84.0%	50 min	0.61%	B+
Delta Air Lines	10,637	86.1%	86 min	1.14%	A
United Airlines	10,074	80.3%	77 min	0.78%	B+
Frontier Airlines	7,636	78.9%	82 min	1.18%	B
Alaska Airlines	5,685	84.9%	54 min	0.62%	B+
JetBlue Airways	1,102	70.2%	77 min	3.27%	C−

JetBlue Airways cancels 3.3% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.

Route by route

Busiest routes out of PHX

Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from PHX, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 77.9%.

Busiest routes from PHX by flight volume
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
PHX to DEN · Denver	9,012	76.7%	68 min	0.65%	B+
PHX to LAX · Los Angeles	7,586	82.1%	58 min	0.66%	B+
PHX to SEA · Seattle	7,202	82.2%	56 min	0.69%	B+
PHX to SAN · San Diego	6,051	69.4%	55 min	1.32%	C
PHX to LAS · Las Vegas	6,017	77.5%	66 min	1.06%	B
PHX to SLC · Salt Lake City	5,779	83.0%	61 min	0.48%	B+
PHX to ORD · Chicago	5,632	76.2%	81 min	1.56%	B
PHX to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	5,253	80.8%	76 min	2.36%	B
PHX to SFO · San Francisco	4,728	63.6%	64 min	0.57%	D+
PHX to SNA · Santa Ana	4,643	79.4%	54 min	0.45%	B+
PHX to PDX · Portland	3,768	77.4%	54 min	0.45%	B+
PHX to ATL · Atlanta	3,696	80.7%	78 min	0.87%	B+
PHX to SMF · Sacramento	3,606	80.0%	56 min	0.42%	B+
PHX to TUS · Tucson	3,508	81.0%	77 min	0.63%	B+
PHX to AUS · Austin	3,358	74.5%	54 min	0.63%	C+
PHX to ABQ · Albuquerque	3,293	77.9%	57 min	0.39%	B+
PHX to BUR · Burbank	3,147	79.8%	60 min	0.70%	B+
PHX to JFK · New York	3,096	78.4%	80 min	3.23%	B−
PHX to ONT · Ontario	3,012	76.8%	56 min	0.53%	B+
PHX to SJC · San Jose	2,979	78.2%	56 min	0.54%	B+
PHX to IAH · Houston	2,977	81.8%	74 min	0.77%	B+
PHX to MSP · Minneapolis	2,974	83.7%	78 min	0.87%	B+
PHX to DAL · Dallas	2,906	75.4%	51 min	1.48%	B
PHX to CLT · Charlotte	2,879	87.6%	78 min	1.04%	A
PHX to MDW · Chicago	2,742	70.8%	49 min	1.09%	C

Departure window

The best time of day to leave PHX

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am22,338 flights91.8%
8am–11am47,402 flights83.3%
11am–2pm33,884 flights78.6%
2pm–5pm36,466 flights73.1%
5pm–8pm29,602 flights69.4%
8pm–5am28,327 flights72.1%

Scale runs 60% to 95%.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.8% of the time, against 69.4% for the evening window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 47,402 flights scheduled in it.

Explore

Filter PHX departures by airline, time, month and day

Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.

On departures from Phoenix (PHX), the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 69.4%, a wide gap of 22.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.

5–8am91.8%
8–11am83.3%
11am–2pm78.6%
2–5pm73.1%
5–8pm69.4%
8pm–5am72.1%

best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.

Across the year

When PHX runs late

PHX's year swings by 13 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, July worst

July is the worst month at 70.0% on time, 13 points below February, the best at 83.4%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. March was the busiest month here, with 19,277 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.8%, a spread of 8 points.

PHX month by month

From Europe

Transatlantic routes into PHX

2 European airports send scheduled passenger flights to PHX, 1,541 flights a year in both directions by the DOT's international count. The DOT keeps no delay record for international flights; the UK routes carry the CAA's departure punctuality, and every route sets its departure airport's EUROCONTROL figures beside PHX's own record above.

Every Europe-to-US route

Delay causes

Why PHX gets delayed

Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 2.73 million delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Late-arriving aircraft
45%
Carrier
36%
National Airspace System
16%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
0%

45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 2.73 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. The split is drawn from 2,725,014 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 991,000 of the 2.73 million delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.87%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

6.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

198,019 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.

What to do with this

Flying out of PHX

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 83.4% on time and July 70.0%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 195,738 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

PHX delay questions

How often is Phoenix (PHX) delayed?

Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.1% of the 198,019 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on Phoenix (PHX)?

Delta Air Lines leads at 86.1% on time across 10,637 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 70.2%, a gap of 16 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.

What time of day has the fewest delays on Phoenix (PHX)?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.4%, 22 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.

How bad are July delays on Phoenix (PHX)?

July is the weakest month at 70.0% on time, compared with 83.4% in February. Across the year that is 13 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Embed PHX’s on-time badge on your site

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<iframe src="https://delayatlas.com/embed/airport/phx" width="320" height="132" style="border:0;max-width:100%" loading="lazy" title="PHX airport on-time record"></iframe>
<p style="font:12px/1.4 sans-serif;margin:4px 0 0">PHX airport delay statistics from <a href="https://delayatlas.com/airports/phx">DelayAtlas</a></p>

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.