Carrier route record
F9LAX→PHX
Frontier Airlines · Los Angeles to Phoenix
- Flights
- 488
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 6%
- Carriers
- 7
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on LAX to PHX sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 488 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 2,590 at 87.2% on time.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 87.2% on time across 2,590 flights.
Key figures
On time
74.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 481 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.43%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
80.9%
Every carrier on LAX to PHX, 7,608 flights
These figures cover 488 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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
Frontier against every carrier on LAX to PHX
Frontier flew 488 of the 7,608 flights on LAX to PHX, about 6% of it. Its 74.6% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 87.2% to Frontier at 74.6%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 87.2% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 74.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,017 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 2,590 | 87.2% | 59 min | 0.73% | A+ |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 339 | 86.6% | 74 min | 0.59% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 6 | 83.3% | 22 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 142 | 83.0% | 77 min | 0.70% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 2,026 | 79.1% | 91 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,017 | 74.9% | 51 min | 1.09% | C |
| Frontier Airlines (this page) | 488 | 74.6% | 72 min | 1.43% | C |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 12 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 12 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Departure window
When Frontier runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 11 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am48 flights78.7%
- 11am–2pm88 flights78.2%
- 2pm–5pm146 flights79.2%
- 5pm–8pm38 flights70.3%
- 8pm–5am168 flights68.7%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 79.2% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 68.7%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 168 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on LAX to PHX through the year
April is the best month on the calendar at 81.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 60 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 89.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.1%. 26 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Frontier runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 70% of the 8,815 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.
- 70%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 14%Carrier
70% 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 8,815 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 70 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 8,815 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.43% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.9% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 370 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 2pm–5pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.1% on time across 489 flights, 9 points above 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 488 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Frontier on LAX to PHX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 488 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 74.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 481 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to PHX, every carrier
- Frontier on PHX to LAX, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on LAX to PHX87.2%
- United Airlines on LAX to PHX86.6%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to PHX83.0%
- American Airlines on LAX to PHX79.1%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to PHX74.9%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.