Skip to content
DelayAtlas

Route reliability record

OKC→PHX

Oklahoma City to Phoenix

Flights
1,834
Period
September 2025 to August 2026
Distance
833 mi
Carriers
3
B+GRADE

This route lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,834 OKC to PHX flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 866 at 82.9% on time.

Best time to fly OKC to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.7%, against 80.6% for the route overall.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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.

Key figures

On time

80.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,813 completed flights

Avg delay

79 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.93%

National rate is 1.89%

Best carrier

Southwest

82.9% on time across 866 flights

These figures cover 1,834 flights between September 2025 and August 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.

Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.

Carrier by carrier

Which airline is most reliable on OKC 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 OKC to PHX
AirlineFlightsOn timeAvg delayCancelledGrade
American Airlinesthin sample13486.2%65 min2.99%A
Southwest Airlines86682.9%58 min0.92%B+
SkyWest Airlines83477.3%97 min0.60%B+

No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 82.9%, 6 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.

Flight by flight

Flights on OKC 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.

Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.

Best ways to make this trip

The most reliable ways to fly Oklahoma City to Phoenix

Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.

Most reliable ways to fly from OKC to PHX
OptionAirlineSuccessOn timeCancelledBest departureMost punctual flight
1. OKC → PHXOklahoma City to PhoenixSouthwest Airlines82.1%82.9%0.92%5am–8am, Wed—
2. OKC → PHXOklahoma City to PhoenixSkyWest Airlines76.8%77.3%0.60%8am–11am, SatOO 6392 08:31

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.

Plan this trip by month, day and time

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 32 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.

  • 5am–8am289 flights96.9%
  • 8am–11am419 flights85.5%
  • 11am–2pm207 flights73.4%
  • 2pm–5pm332 flights75.6%
  • 5pm–8pm466 flights76.8%
  • 8pm–5am121 flights64.7%

Scale runs 55% to 100%.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.7% on time, against 96.9% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 466 flights scheduled in it.

Explore

Filter OKC 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 OKC to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 96.9% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 64.7%, a wide gap of 32.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.

  • 5–8am96.9%
  • 8–11am85.5%
  • 11am–2pm73.4%
  • 2–5pm75.6%
  • 5–8pm76.8%
  • 8pm–5am64.7%

best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 14 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.

On-time rate by calendar month88J86F81M80A80M74J77J81A87S79O77N81D
Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.January best, June worst

June is the worst month at 73.5% on time, 14 points below January, the best at 87.7%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 169 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 78.4%, a spread of 7 points.

On-time rate by day of the week79.9Mon79.9Tue85.7Wed78.6Thu78.4Fri84.5Sat78.7Sun
Monday: 79.9 percent on time. Tuesday: 79.9 percent on time. Wednesday: 85.7 percent on time. Thursday: 78.6 percent on time. Friday: 78.4 percent on time. Saturday: 84.5 percent on time. Sunday: 78.7 percent on time

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 28,000 reported delay minutes.

  • Carrier
    40%
  • Late-arriving aircraft
    37%
  • Extreme weather
    12%
  • National Airspace System
    11%
  • Security
    0%

Extreme weather accounts for 12% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 27,877 reported delay minutes.

37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.

Cancellations sit at 0.93% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

7.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, 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.

The 833 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.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.5% on time across 1,834 flights, 5 points below 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 5 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 1,834 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 87.7% on time and June 73.5%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,813 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

OKC to PHX questions

How often is OKC to PHX delayed?

About 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 19.4% of the 1,834 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 OKC to PHX?

Southwest Airlines leads at 82.9% on time across 866 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 77.3%, 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 OKC to PHX?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.7%, 32 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 OKC to PHX?

June is the weakest month at 73.5% on time, compared with 87.7% in January. Across the year that is 14 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

Direction matters. OKC to PHX and PHX to OKC are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Embed OKC 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.