Route reliability record
DAL→PHX
Dallas to Phoenix
- Flights
- 2,867
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 879 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 2,867 DAL to PHX flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly DAL to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.0%, against 73.9% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,801 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.06%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
73.9% on time across 2,867 flights
These figures cover 2,867 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DAL to PHX
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,867 | 73.9% | 55 min | 2.06% | C |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas to Phoenix
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → PHXDallas-Fort Worth to Phoenix | Frontier Airlines | 74.8% | 76.4% | 2.05% | 8am–11am, Sat | F9 3971 11:54 |
| 2. DAL → PHXDallas to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 72.4% | 73.9% | 2.06% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. DFW → PHXDallas-Fort Worth to Phoenix | American Airlines | 70.8% | 72.5% | 2.41% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 42 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am469 flights95.5%
- 8am–11am455 flights84.5%
- 11am–2pm574 flights82.7%
- 2pm–5pm495 flights68.8%
- 5pm–8pm470 flights54.6%
- 8pm–5am404 flights53.3%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 53.3% on time, against 95.5% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 574 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DAL to PHX 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 DAL to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 53.3%, a wide gap of 42.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.5%
- 8–11am84.5%
- 11am–2pm82.7%
- 2–5pm68.8%
- 5–8pm54.6%
- 8pm–5am53.3%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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.
June is the worst month at 54.2% on time, 30 points below December, the best at 84.6%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 276 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.8%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 40,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 40,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 26 to one. The split is drawn from 39,881 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 95.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.06% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.24%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.5% 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 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 879 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg runs 75.4% on time across 2,906 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 2,867 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in PHX after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. December runs 84.6% on time and June 54.2%, a swing of 30 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,801 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DAL to PHX questions
How often is DAL to PHX delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.1% of the 2,867 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is DAL to PHX compared with the rest of the country?
73.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DAL to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 53.3%, 42 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 June delays on DAL to PHX?
June is the weakest month at 54.2% on time, compared with 84.6% in December. Across the year that is 30 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to DAL — the return legseparate record
- Dallas Love Field (DAL) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- DAL to HOU, a related route74.8%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- DAL to ATL, a related route78.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record73.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DAL to PHX and PHX to DAL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.