Route reliability record
LAS→PHX
Las Vegas to Phoenix
- Flights
- 6,060
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 255 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 6,060 flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,693 at 81.6% on time.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 81.6% on time across 1,693 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,991 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.06%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
American
81.6% on time across 1,693 flights
These figures cover 6,060 flights between June 2025 and May 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 LAS to PHX
The three carriers here are closely matched: 5 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 | 10 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 22 | 86.4% | 31 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 1,693 | 81.6% | 81 min | 0.89% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 874 | 78.8% | 101 min | 1.26% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 3,449 | 76.6% | 52 min | 1.10% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 12 | 75.0% | 53 min | 0.00% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 81.6%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,143 flights93.1%
- 8am–11am1,046 flights86.8%
- 11am–2pm1,042 flights79.8%
- 2pm–5pm1,081 flights69.1%
- 5pm–8pm927 flights67.1%
- 8pm–5am821 flights70.3%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.1% of the time, against 67.1% for the evening window. That is 26 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 6,060 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
June is the worst month at 73.3% on time, 11 points below February, the best at 84.5%. 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.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.6%. 16 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 57% of the 86,000 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.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
57% 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 86,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 34 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 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 93.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.06% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. 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 about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 255 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 runs 78.9% on time across 6,055 flights, within half a point 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 6,060 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 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 67.1% on time against 93.1% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 26 points is the largest single thing you control here. American Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close.
Common questions
LAS to PHX questions
How often is LAS 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 21.6% of the 6,060 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LAS to PHX?
American Airlines leads at 81.6% on time across 1,693 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 76.6%, a gap of 5 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 LAS to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.1%, 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 LAS to PHX?
June is the weakest month at 73.3% on time, compared with 84.5% in February. Across the year that is 11 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 LAS — the return legseparate record
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record86.4%
- American Airlines on-time record81.6%
- 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. LAS to PHX and PHX to LAS 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, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.