Carrier route record
WNELP→PHX
Southwest Airlines · El Paso to Phoenix
- Flights
- 1,218
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 49%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on ELP to PHX lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,218 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on ELP to PHX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,207 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.82%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.1%
Every carrier on ELP to PHX, 2,507 flights
These figures cover 1,218 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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
Southwest against every carrier on ELP to PHX
Southwest flew 1,218 of the 2,507 flights on ELP to PHX, about 49% of it. Its 77.8% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 84.9% to Southwest at 77.8%. 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 | 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 (this page) | 1,218 | 77.8% | 50 min | 0.82% | B+ |
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 41 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am336 flights94.0%
- 8am–11am148 flights88.4%
- 11am–2pm136 flights91.0%
- 2pm–5pm193 flights68.1%
- 5pm–8pm234 flights65.8%
- 8pm–5am171 flights53.0%
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 53.0% on time, against 94.0% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 336 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on ELP to PHX through the year
June is the worst month at 69.7% on time, 21 points below January, the best at 90.2%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 115 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.4%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 62% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 62%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
- 0%Extreme weather
62% 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 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 62 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 12,993 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 94.0% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, 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 costs
5.2% 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 last about 50 minutes, 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 74.7% on time across 1,210 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 1,218 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 Southwest on ELP to PHX
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 90.2% on time and June 69.7%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,207 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ELP to PHX, every carrier
- Southwest on PHX to ELP, the return leg
- American Airlines on ELP to PHX84.9%
- Envoy Air on ELP to PHX84.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on ELP to PHX83.9%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- 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 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.