Route reliability record
JFK→PHX
New York to Phoenix
- Flights
- 3,097
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,153 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 3,097 JFK to PHX flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,647 at 79.3% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 77.9%, against 76.2% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 79.3% on time across 1,647 flights.
Key figures
On time
76.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,984 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.26%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
79.3% on time across 1,647 flights
These figures cover 3,097 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% 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 JFK to PHX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 79.3% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 72.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 919 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,647 | 79.3% | 97 min | 2.67% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 531 | 72.8% | 63 min | 4.71% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 919 | 72.7% | 62 min | 3.48% | C− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 4.7% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on JFK 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 New York 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 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → PHXNewark to Phoenix | United Airlines | 78.5% | 80.3% | 2.23% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. JFK → PHXNew York to Phoenix | American Airlines | 77.2% | 79.3% | 2.67% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2829 12:29 |
| 3. EWR → PHXNewark to Phoenix | American Airlines | 74.9% | 76.9% | 2.59% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 4. JFK → PHXNew York to Phoenix | Delta Air Lines | 70.2% | 72.7% | 3.48% | 8am–11am, Sat | DL 791 08:00 |
| 5. JFK → PHXNew York to Phoenix | JetBlue Airways | 69.4% | 72.8% | 4.71% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
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 19 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am442 flights83.4%
- 8am–11am716 flights80.5%
- 11am–2pm408 flights80.1%
- 2pm–5pm168 flights79.5%
- 5pm–8pm1,148 flights71.2%
- 8pm–5am215 flights64.1%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.1% on time, against 83.4% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 1,148 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK 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 JFK to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 83.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 64.1%, a wide gap of 19.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am83.4%
- 8–11am80.5%
- 11am–2pm80.1%
- 2–5pm79.5%
- 5–8pm71.2%
- 8pm–5am64.1%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
December is the weak month at 63.6% on time, against 85.9% in April. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 289 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.6%, a spread of 4 points.
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 56,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 56,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 55,608 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 83.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.26%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.8% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,153 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 78.4% on time across 3,096 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 3,097 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.26% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,984 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to PHX questions
How often is JFK 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 23.8% of the 3,097 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 JFK to PHX?
American Airlines leads at 79.3% on time across 1,647 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 72.7%, a gap of 7 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 JFK to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.1%, 19 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 December delays on JFK to PHX?
December is the weakest month at 63.6% on time, compared with 85.9% in April. Across the year that is 22 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 JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- American Airlines on JFK to PHX79.3%
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to PHX72.8%
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to PHX72.7%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- American Airlines on-time record79.3%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record72.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record72.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. JFK to PHX and PHX to JFK 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.