Route reliability record
DEN→PHX
Denver to Phoenix
- Flights
- 9,069
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 602 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 9,069 DEN to PHX flights, of which United Airlines flew 2,390 at 81.6% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.8%, against 75.6% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 81.6% on time across 2,390 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 8,982 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.82%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
81.6% on time across 2,390 flights
These figures cover 9,069 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to PHX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 81.6% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 71.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 3,989 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,390 | 81.6% | 64 min | 0.25% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,499 | 77.0% | 70 min | 0.80% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 33 | 75.8% | 63 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 173 | 75.6% | 103 min | 0.58% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 985 | 75.4% | 134 min | 1.12% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 3,989 | 71.6% | 56 min | 1.10% | C |
United leads Southwest by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to PHX
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Denver to Phoenix
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DEN → PHXDenver to Phoenix | United Airlines | 81.4% | 81.6% | 0.25% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 1686 11:25 |
| 2. DEN → PHXDenver to Phoenix | Frontier Airlines | 76.4% | 77.0% | 0.80% | 5am–8am, Sat | F9 4753 22:36 |
| 3. DEN → PHXDenver to Phoenix | American Airlines | 74.6% | 75.4% | 1.12% | 5am–8am, Sat | AA 1404 07:10 |
| 4. DEN → PHXDenver to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 70.8% | 71.6% | 1.10% | 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 29 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,289 flights89.3%
- 8am–11am1,726 flights85.6%
- 11am–2pm1,610 flights80.1%
- 2pm–5pm1,549 flights73.2%
- 5pm–8pm1,627 flights64.0%
- 8pm–5am1,268 flights60.3%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 60.3% on time, against 89.3% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 1,726 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN 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 DEN to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 60.3%, a wide gap of 29.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.3%
- 8–11am85.6%
- 11am–2pm80.1%
- 2–5pm73.2%
- 5–8pm64.0%
- 8pm–5am60.3%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
July is the worst month at 66.0% on time, 19 points below April, the best at 84.8%. 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 918 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.8%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 151,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 151,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 28 to one. The split is drawn from 151,214 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 57,000 of the 151,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.0% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 602 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 76.7% on time across 9,012 flights, within about a point 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 9,069 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. April runs 84.8% on time and July 66.0%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 8,982 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to PHX questions
How often is DEN 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 24.4% of the 9,069 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to PHX?
United Airlines leads at 81.6% on time across 2,390 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 71.6%, a gap of 10 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 DEN to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 60.3%, 29 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 DEN to PHX?
July is the weakest month at 66.0% on time, compared with 84.8% in April. Across the year that is 19 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 DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- United Airlines on DEN to PHX81.6%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to PHX77.0%
- Envoy Air on DEN to PHX75.6%
- American Airlines on DEN to PHX75.4%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to PHX71.6%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- LAX to PHX, a related route80.3%
- DEN to LAX, a related route78.7%
- United Airlines on-time record81.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record77.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record75.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DEN to PHX and PHX to DEN 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.