Route reliability record
FAT→PHX
Fresno to Phoenix
- Flights
- 1,452
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 493 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,452 FAT to PHX flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 545 at 82.8% on time.
Best time to fly FAT to PHX: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.6%, against 81.0% for the route overall.
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.
Key figures
On time
81.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,441 completed flights
Avg delay
109 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.69%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
82.8% on time across 545 flights
These figures cover 1,452 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on FAT 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 105 | 91.4% | 212 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 545 | 82.8% | 133 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 802 | 78.4% | 91 min | 0.87% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 82.8%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on FAT 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Fresno 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. FAT → PHXFresno to Phoenix | SkyWest Airlines | 82.3% | 82.8% | 0.55% | 8am–11am, Sun | OO 6275 06:00 |
| 2. FAT → PHXFresno to Phoenix | American Airlines | 77.7% | 78.4% | 0.87% | 8am–11am, 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 26 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am363 flights84.3%
- 8am–11am266 flights90.1%
- 11am–2pm354 flights82.4%
- 2pm–5pm229 flights80.1%
- 5pm–8pm237 flights64.1%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.1% on time, against 90.1% for the 8am–11am 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 363 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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 70.4% on time, 18 points below September, the best at 88.0%. 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 149 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 78.4%. 6 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 49% of the 30,000 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.
- 49%Carrier
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% 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 30,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 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 29,989 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, 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 15,000 of the 30,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.69%, 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
8.2% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 493 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 79.3% on time across 1,452 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 1,452 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. September runs 88.0% on time and June 70.4%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,441 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FAT to PHX questions
How often is FAT to PHX delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.0% of the 1,452 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on FAT to PHX?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 82.8% on time across 545 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 78.4%, 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 FAT to PHX?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.1%, 26 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 FAT to PHX?
June is the weakest month at 70.4% on time, compared with 88.0% in September. Across the year that is 18 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 FAT — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on FAT to PHX91.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on FAT to PHX82.8%
- American Airlines on FAT to PHX78.4%
- FAT to SAN, a related route76.2%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.7%
- FAT to LAS, a related route82.2%
- Envoy Air on-time record91.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record82.8%
- American Airlines on-time record78.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. FAT to PHX and PHX to FAT 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.