Route reliability record
ORD→PHX
Chicago to Phoenix
- Flights
- 5,631
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,440 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 5,631 ORD to PHX flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,989 at 78.3% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.4% of the time and Saturday flights 77.5%, against 72.4% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.3% on time across 1,989 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,507 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.63%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
78.3% on time across 1,989 flights
These figures cover 5,631 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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 ORD to PHX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 78.3% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 60.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 398 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,989 | 78.3% | 73 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 3,062 | 70.1% | 88 min | 2.09% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 182 | 69.5% | 84 min | 3.85% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 398 | 60.7% | 69 min | 2.51% | D |
The spread between United and Southwest is 18 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 18 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD 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 Chicago 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. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → PHXChicago to Phoenix | United Airlines | 77.9% | 78.3% | 0.55% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 455 13:30 |
| 2. MDW → PHXChicago to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 73.5% | 74.7% | 1.57% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 3. ORD → PHXChicago to Phoenix | American Airlines | 68.6% | 70.1% | 2.09% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. ORD → PHXChicago to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 59.2% | 60.7% | 2.51% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 24 points, against 18 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am897 flights84.4%
- 8am–11am842 flights77.3%
- 11am–2pm1,142 flights80.2%
- 2pm–5pm1,060 flights66.5%
- 5pm–8pm790 flights62.5%
- 8pm–5am900 flights60.9%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 60.9% on time, against 84.4% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 1,142 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD 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 ORD to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 60.9%, a wide gap of 23.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.4%
- 8–11am77.3%
- 11am–2pm80.2%
- 2–5pm66.5%
- 5–8pm62.5%
- 8pm–5am60.9%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
June is the worst month at 62.3% on time, 19 points below February, the best at 80.9%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 585 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.2%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 124,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 124,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 124,373 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 84.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.63% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.57%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,440 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 76.2% on time across 5,632 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 5,631 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. February runs 80.9% on time and June 62.3%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 5,507 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to PHX questions
How often is ORD to PHX delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.6% of the 5,631 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 ORD to PHX?
United Airlines leads at 78.3% on time across 1,989 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 60.7%, a gap of 18 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 ORD to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 60.9%, 24 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 ORD to PHX?
June is the weakest month at 62.3% on time, compared with 80.9% in February. Across the year that is 19 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 ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- United Airlines on ORD to PHX78.3%
- American Airlines on ORD to PHX70.1%
- Frontier Airlines on ORD to PHX69.5%
- Southwest Airlines on ORD to PHX60.7%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- United Airlines on-time record78.3%
- American Airlines on-time record70.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record69.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. ORD to PHX and PHX to ORD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed ORD 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.