Carrier route record
WNCLE→PHX
Southwest Airlines · Cleveland to Phoenix
- Flights
- 366
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 36%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on CLE to PHX sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 366 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on CLE to PHX runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 76 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 366 completed flights
Avg delay
43 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.2%
Every carrier on CLE to PHX, 1,011 flights
These figures cover 366 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on CLE to PHX
Southwest flew 366 of the 1,011 flights on CLE to PHX, about 36% of it. Its 69.7% on time is 7 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 82.5% to Southwest at 69.7%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 318 | 82.5% | 60 min | 0.31% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 327 | 77.5% | 88 min | 2.14% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 366 | 69.7% | 43 min | 0.00% | C+ |
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Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am18 flights—
- 8am–11am8 flights—
- 11am–2pm143 flights81.8%
- 2pm–5pm169 flights59.8%
- 5pm–8pm23 flights—
- 8pm–5am5 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 81.8% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 59.8%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 169 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on CLE to PHX through the year
June is the worst month at 43.3% on time, 41 points below January, the best at 84.4%. 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 39 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 62.3%, a spread of 26 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on CLE to PHX runs when it is late
Most of the lateness is short. 61 of the 111 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 17 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early66 flights18.0%
- Within 15 min189 flights51.6%
- 15–29 min late61 flights16.7%
- 30–59 min late33 flights9.0%
- 1–2 hours late12 flights3.3%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 366 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 131 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 40 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 20 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at PHX.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on CLE to PHX
The latest arrival of the period was on 29 November 2025, 5 hours 28 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 29 November 2025 | 5 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 October 2025 | 3 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 December 2025 | 3 hours 18 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 December 2025 | 3 hours 17 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 November 2025 | 2 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 4,727 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,727 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 30 to one. The split is drawn from 4,727 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,637 of the 4,727 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.6% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 1,737 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 67.1% on time across 366 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 366 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on CLE to PHX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 366 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 69.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 366 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLE to PHX, every carrier
- Southwest on PHX to CLE, the return leg
- American Airlines on CLE to PHX82.5%
- Frontier Airlines on CLE to PHX77.5%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.