Route reliability record
MRY→PHX
Monterey to Phoenix
- Flights
- 1,375
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 598 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,375 MRY to PHX flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly MRY to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.6%, against 81.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 41 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,356 completed flights
Avg delay
102 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.24%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
81.1% on time across 887 flights
These figures cover 1,375 flights between July 2025 and June 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 MRY 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 221 | 84.4% | 44 min | 1.36% | B |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 267 | 81.5% | 112 min | 1.87% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 887 | 81.1% | 111 min | 1.01% | B |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Monterey 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. SJC → PHXSan Jose to Phoenix | American Airlines | 86.8% | 87.5% | 0.78% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. MRY → PHXMonterey to Phoenix | SkyWest Airlines | 80.3% | 81.1% | 1.01% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. SJC → PHXSan Jose to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 78.1% | 78.6% | 0.64% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am363 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am264 flights84.4%
- 11am–2pm297 flights74.7%
- 2pm–5pm242 flights73.2%
- 5pm–8pm209 flights80.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.6% of the time, against 73.2% for the afternoon window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 363 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 1,375 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 74.5%. December is the strongest month at 86.2%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 12 points. December was the busiest month here, with 132 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.8%. 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. Carrier accounts for 56% of the 25,000 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.
- 56%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%Extreme weather
- 6%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 56%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 14,000 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 25,248 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 91.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.24% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.6% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 598 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 78.9% on time across 1,374 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 1,375 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: take the 5am–8am departure, avoid October if the dates are flexible, and if two carriers are within a few dollars of each other, SkyWest is the one with the record behind it. None of that guarantees an on-time arrival; it moves the odds by 18 points, which is the most any booking decision can do. 1,356 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MRY to PHX questions
How often is MRY to PHX delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.3% of the 1,375 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is MRY to PHX compared with the rest of the country?
81.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MRY to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 73.2%, 18 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 October delays on MRY to PHX?
October is the weakest month at 74.5% on time, compared with 86.2% in December. Across the year that is 12 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 MRY — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on MRY to PHX84.4%
- American Airlines on MRY to PHX81.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on MRY to PHX81.1%
- MRY to LAX, a related route87.8%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.7%
- MRY to DEN, a related route93.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record84.4%
- American Airlines on-time record81.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record81.1%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. MRY to PHX and PHX to MRY are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed MRY to PHX’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.