Route reliability record
HOU→PHX
Houston to Phoenix
- Flights
- 2,081
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,020 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That rests on 2,081 HOU to PHX flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly HOU to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.0%, against 76.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
76.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,068 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.53%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
76.8% on time across 2,081 flights
These figures cover 2,081 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on HOU to PHX
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,081 | 76.8% | 50 min | 0.53% | B+ |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Houston 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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAH → PHXHouston to Phoenix | United Airlines | 82.5% | 82.7% | 0.23% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1895 09:40 |
| 2. IAH → PHXHouston to Phoenix | American Airlines | 78.7% | 80.0% | 1.58% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 3. HOU → PHXHouston to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 76.4% | 76.8% | 0.53% | 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 32 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am363 flights96.1%
- 8am–11am322 flights87.4%
- 11am–2pm369 flights77.8%
- 2pm–5pm252 flights74.2%
- 5pm–8pm333 flights64.3%
- 8pm–5am442 flights63.6%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.6% on time, against 96.1% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 442 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter HOU 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 HOU to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 96.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 63.6%, a wide gap of 32.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am96.1%
- 8–11am87.4%
- 11am–2pm77.8%
- 2–5pm74.2%
- 5–8pm64.3%
- 8pm–5am63.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 36 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 54.7% on time, 36 points below February, the best at 90.5%. 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 197 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.9%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 24,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. The split is drawn from 24,011 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,423 of the 24,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.53%, 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
5.8% 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 about 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,020 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 71.4% on time across 2,124 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,081 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 90.5% on time and June 54.7%, a swing of 36 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,068 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HOU to PHX questions
How often is HOU 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 23.2% of the 2,081 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is HOU to PHX compared with the rest of the country?
76.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on HOU to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.6%, 32 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 HOU to PHX?
June is the weakest month at 54.7% on time, compared with 90.5% in February. Across the year that is 36 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 HOU — the return legseparate record
- William P. Hobby (HOU) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- HOU to DAL, a related route81.6%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- HOU to ATL, a related route79.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.8%
- 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. HOU to PHX and PHX to HOU 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.