Route reliability record
PHX→ATL
Phoenix to Atlanta
- Flights
- 3,764
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,587 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 3,764 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 2,303 at 87.0% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 87.0% on time across 2,303 flights.
Key figures
On time
82.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,729 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.72%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
87.0% on time across 2,303 flights
These figures cover 3,764 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 PHX to ATL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 87.0% of the time; American Airlines manages 75.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 614 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 2,303 | 87.0% | 97 min | 0.91% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 632 | 77.6% | 40 min | 0.16% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 614 | 75.5% | 66 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 215 | 72.2% | 74 min | 0.93% | C+ |
Delta leads American by 12 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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 38 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am812 flights92.5%
- 8am–11am869 flights80.9%
- 11am–2pm579 flights81.1%
- 2pm–5pm734 flights78.7%
- 5pm–8pm49 flights54.2%
- 8pm–5am721 flights81.1%
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.2% on time, against 92.5% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 869 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 3,764 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
Delays peak in May, when the on-time rate falls to 76.6%. August is the strongest month at 87.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 10 points. April was the busiest month here, with 357 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.9%. 7 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 46% of the 49,000 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.
- 46%Carrier
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 49,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 21 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 48,633 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, 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 23,000 of the 49,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.72%, below the national 1.81% 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
5.6% 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 are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,587 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 75.4% on time across 3,762 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,764 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 54.2% on time against 92.5% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 38 points is the largest single thing you control here. Delta Air Lines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 3,729 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to ATL questions
How often is PHX to ATL delayed?
About one flight in six arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.3% of the 3,764 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to ATL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 87.0% on time across 2,303 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 75.5%, 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 ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 54.2%, 38 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 May delays on PHX to ATL?
May is the weakest month at 76.6% on time, compared with 87.0% in August. Across the year that is 10 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
- ATL to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record87.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.6%
- American Airlines on-time record75.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. PHX to ATL and ATL to PHX are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.