Route reliability record
PHX→DFW
Phoenix to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 5,167
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 868 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five 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 5,167 flights, of which American Airlines flew 4,577 at 80.0% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
79.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,009 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.63%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
80.0% on time across 4,577 flights
These figures cover 5,167 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 DFW
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 12 | 91.7% | 24 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 10 | 90.0% | 61 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 4,577 | 80.0% | 78 min | 2.75% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 567 | 79.0% | 91 min | 1.76% | B |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 80.0%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 23 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,416 flights89.7%
- 8am–11am862 flights86.0%
- 11am–2pm1,026 flights79.4%
- 2pm–5pm830 flights66.5%
- 5pm–8pm708 flights70.5%
- 8pm–5am325 flights76.1%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.7% of the time, against 66.5% for the afternoon window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 1,416 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
July is the worst month at 71.1% on time, 15 points below April, the best at 86.5%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 502 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.1%. 6 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 80,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%National Airspace System
- 28%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
35% 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 80,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 79,740 reported delay minutes.
32% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 26,000 minutes out of 80,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 2.63%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.1% 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.
The 868 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.7% on time across 5,171 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 5,167 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: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 86.5% on time and July 71.1%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 5,009 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to DFW questions
How often is PHX to DFW delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.1% of the 5,167 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 DFW?
American Airlines leads at 80.0% on time across 4,577 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 79.0%, a gap of about a point. 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 DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 66.5%, 23 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 July delays on PHX to DFW?
July is the weakest month at 71.1% on time, compared with 86.5% in April. Across the year that is 15 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
- DFW to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record91.7%
- Envoy Air on-time record90.0%
- 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 DFW and DFW 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.