Route reliability record
PHL→PHX
Philadelphia to Phoenix
- Flights
- 2,306
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,076 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 2,306 PHL to PHX flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly PHL to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.1%, against 80.4% 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
80.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,256 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.69%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
80.4% on time across 2,306 flights
These figures cover 2,306 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHL 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 2,306 | 80.4% | 69 min | 1.69% | B |
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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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights90.5%
- 8am–11am640 flights83.8%
- 11am–2pm349 flights76.8%
- 2pm–5pm350 flights74.7%
- 5pm–8pm485 flights75.9%
- 8pm–5am117 flights76.3%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.5% of the time, against 74.7% for the afternoon window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 640 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHL 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 PHL to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.5% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 74.7%, a wide gap of 15.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.5%
- 8–11am83.8%
- 11am–2pm76.8%
- 2–5pm74.7%
- 5–8pm75.9%
- 8pm–5am76.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 69.1% on time, 21 points below March, the best at 90.0%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 217 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 75.2%, a spread of 9 points.
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 31,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 30,538 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 90.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.69% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.48%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.9% 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.
At 2,076 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.7% on time across 2,308 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 2,306 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. March runs 90.0% on time and June 69.1%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,256 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to PHX questions
How often is PHL 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 19.6% of the 2,306 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is PHL to PHX compared with the rest of the country?
80.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PHL to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 74.7%, 16 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 PHL to PHX?
June is the weakest month at 69.1% on time, compared with 90.0% in March. Across the year that is 21 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 PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- PHL to ATL, a related route78.0%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- American Airlines on-time record80.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. PHL to PHX and PHX to PHL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.