Route reliability record

ELP→PHX

El Paso to Phoenix

Flights: 2,507
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 347 mi
Carriers: 4

This route lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,507 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 852 at 83.9% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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.

On time

81.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,486 completed flights

Avg delay

69 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.76%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

SkyWest

83.9% on time across 852 flights

These figures cover 2,507 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 airline is most reliable on ELP to PHX

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 83.9% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 77.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,218 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on ELP to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlinesthin sample	119	84.9%	53 min	0.00%	B+
Envoy Airthin sample	318	84.8%	59 min	0.63%	B+
SkyWest Airlines	852	83.9%	112 min	0.82%	B+
Southwest Airlines	1,218	77.8%	50 min	0.82%	B+

SkyWest leads Southwest by 6 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

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 40 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am550 flights93.6%
8am–11am334 flights85.8%
11am–2pm496 flights87.4%
2pm–5pm473 flights77.5%
5pm–8pm480 flights70.2%
8pm–5am174 flights53.8%

Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 53.8% on time, against 93.6% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 550 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 2,507 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.January best, June worst

June is the worst month at 74.9% on time, 12 points below January, the best at 86.6%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 236 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 76.6%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why this route gets delayed

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 32,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
41%
Carrier
39%
National Airspace System
15%
Extreme weather
5%
Security
0%

41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 31,923 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 13,000 of the 32,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.76%, below the national 1.81% 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

6.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 347 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.1% on time across 2,498 flights, 3 points below 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 3 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 2,507 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.

What to do with this

Booking this route

Put together: avoid the 8pm–5am departure. It runs 53.8% on time against 93.6% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 40 points is the largest single thing you control here. SkyWest Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 2,486 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

ELP to PHX questions

How often is ELP to PHX delayed?

About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.9% of the 2,507 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on ELP to PHX?

SkyWest Airlines leads at 83.9% on time across 852 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 77.8%, a gap of 6 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 ELP to PHX?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 53.8%, 40 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 ELP to PHX?

June is the weakest month at 74.9% on time, compared with 86.6% in January. Across the year that is 12 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

Direction matters. ELP to PHX and PHX to ELP are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures