Route reliability record
PHX→ABQ
Phoenix to Albuquerque
- Flights
- 3,293
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 328 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 3,293 PHX to ABQ flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 622 at 85.8% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to ABQ: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.0% of the time and Saturday flights 84.5%, against 77.9% for the route overall.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 85.8% on time across 622 flights.
Key figures
On time
77.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,280 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.39%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
85.8% on time across 622 flights
These figures cover 3,293 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 PHX to ABQ
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 85.8% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 74.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,888 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 622 | 85.8% | 67 min | 0.64% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 220 | 83.6% | 44 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 563 | 79.9% | 85 min | 0.89% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,888 | 74.0% | 49 min | 0.21% | C+ |
SkyWest leads Southwest by 12 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix to Albuquerque
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.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHX → ABQPhoenix to Albuquerque | SkyWest Airlines | 85.3% | 85.8% | 0.64% | 11am–2pm, Mon | — |
| 2. PHX → ABQPhoenix to Albuquerque | American Airlines | 79.2% | 79.9% | 0.89% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 3. PHX → ABQPhoenix to Albuquerque | Southwest Airlines | 73.8% | 74.0% | 0.21% | 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 29 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am80 flights95.0%
- 8am–11am739 flights91.1%
- 11am–2pm667 flights83.1%
- 2pm–5pm683 flights73.9%
- 5pm–8pm484 flights65.7%
- 8pm–5am640 flights68.4%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.0% of the time, against 65.7% for the evening window. That is 29 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 739 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX to ABQ 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 PHX to ABQ, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.7%, a wide gap of 29.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.0%
- 8–11am91.1%
- 11am–2pm83.1%
- 2–5pm73.9%
- 5–8pm65.7%
- 8pm–5am68.4%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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 61.7% on time, 28 points below February, 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. December was the busiest month here, with 321 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.0%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 41,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 5%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
56% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 41,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 40 to one. The split is drawn from 40,882 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 15,000 of the 41,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.39%, below the national 1.89% 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
6.5% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 328 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.8% on time across 3,302 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 3,293 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 ABQ 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 90.0% on time and June 61.7%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 3,280 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to ABQ questions
How often is PHX to ABQ 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 22.1% of the 3,293 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to ABQ?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 85.8% on time across 622 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 74.0%, a gap of 12 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 PHX to ABQ?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.7%, 29 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 PHX to ABQ?
June is the weakest month at 61.7% on time, compared with 90.0% in February. Across the year that is 28 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
- ABQ to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to ABQ85.8%
- Envoy Air on PHX to ABQ83.6%
- American Airlines on PHX to ABQ79.9%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to ABQ74.0%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- DEN to ABQ, a related route78.3%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record85.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record83.6%
- American Airlines on-time record79.9%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PHX to ABQ and ABQ to PHX 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.