Route reliability record

MCI→PHX

Kansas City to Phoenix

Flights: 2,471
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 1,044 mi
Carriers: 5

This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 2,471 flights, of which American Airlines flew 597 at 82.7% on time.

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.

On time

79.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,451 completed flights

Avg delay

68 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.73%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

American

82.7% on time across 597 flights

These figures cover 2,471 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

Which airline is most reliable on MCI to PHX

The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 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.

On-time performance by carrier on MCI to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	114	90.3%	36 min	0.88%	A+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	55	83.6%	53 min	0.00%	B+
American Airlines	597	82.7%	119 min	1.17%	B
Southwest Airlines	1,635	77.0%	54 min	0.55%	B+
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	70	75.4%	85 min	1.43%	B

No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 82.7%, 6 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 37 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am531 flights90.9%
8am–11am446 flights86.3%
11am–2pm278 flights82.4%
2pm–5pm634 flights77.5%
5pm–8pm428 flights65.7%
8pm–5am154 flights54.0%

Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.0% on time, against 90.9% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 634 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 2,471 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.March best, November worst

Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 73.3%. March is the strongest month at 84.4%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 11 points. March was the busiest month here, with 272 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.8%. 13 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 51% of the 35,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
51%
Carrier
32%
National Airspace System
14%
Extreme weather
2%
Security
0%

51% 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 35,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 23 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 34,798 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 90.9% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.73%, 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

6.0% 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 are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 1,044 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg runs 76.5% on time across 2,472 flights, within 3 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 2,471 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 8pm–5am departure. It runs 54.0% on time against 90.9% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 37 points is the largest single thing you control here. American Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 2,451 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

MCI to PHX questions

How often is MCI 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 20.9% of the 2,471 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on MCI to PHX?

American Airlines leads at 82.7% on time across 597 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 77.0%, a gap of 6 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 MCI to PHX?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 54.0%, 37 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 November delays on MCI to PHX?

November is the weakest month at 73.3% on time, compared with 84.4% in March. 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.

Where to go next

Direction matters. MCI to PHX and PHX to MCI 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures