Route reliability record
DFW→PHX
Dallas-Fort Worth to Phoenix
- Flights
- 5,258
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 868 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 5,258 DFW to PHX flights, of which Frontier Airlines flew 635 at 76.4% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 77.2%, against 73.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 43 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,122 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.36%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Frontier
76.4% on time across 635 flights
These figures cover 5,258 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% 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 DFW to PHX
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 10 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 635 | 76.4% | 86 min | 2.05% | B |
| American Airlines | 4,612 | 72.5% | 67 min | 2.41% | C |
No carrier stands out. Frontier tops the table at 76.4%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW 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 Dallas-Fort Worth 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. 1 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 21 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am472 flights85.0%
- 8am–11am855 flights80.1%
- 11am–2pm807 flights77.3%
- 2pm–5pm1,116 flights73.8%
- 5pm–8pm960 flights66.0%
- 8pm–5am1,048 flights63.9%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.9% on time, against 85.0% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,116 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW 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 DFW to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.0% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 63.9%, a wide gap of 21.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.0%
- 8–11am80.1%
- 11am–2pm77.3%
- 2–5pm73.8%
- 5–8pm66.0%
- 8pm–5am63.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route'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.
June is the worst month at 66.2% on time, 13 points below February, the best at 79.6%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 501 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.6%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 96,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 11%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 96,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 95,710 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 85.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.36% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 868 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.8% on time across 5,253 flights, 8 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 5,258 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. February runs 79.6% on time and June 66.2%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 5,122 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to PHX questions
How often is DFW 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 27.0% of the 5,258 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 DFW to PHX?
Frontier Airlines leads at 76.4% on time across 635 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 72.5%, a gap of 4 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 DFW to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.9%, 21 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 DFW to PHX?
June is the weakest month at 66.2% on time, compared with 79.6% 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.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to PHX76.4%
- American Airlines on DFW to PHX72.5%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record76.4%
- 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. DFW to PHX and PHX to DFW 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.