Route reliability record
PHX→DFW
Phoenix to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 5,253
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 868 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 4 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 5,253 PHX to DFW flights, of which American Airlines flew 4,607 at 80.9% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.4%, against 80.8% 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
80.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,111 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.36%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
80.9% on time across 4,607 flights
These figures cover 5,253 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 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+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 10 | 90.0% | 61 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 4,607 | 80.9% | 75 min | 2.45% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 635 | 79.5% | 78 min | 1.73% | B |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 80.9%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix to Dallas-Fort Worth
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 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHX → DFWPhoenix to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 78.9% | 80.9% | 2.45% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. PHX → DFWPhoenix to Dallas-Fort Worth | Frontier Airlines | 78.1% | 79.5% | 1.73% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. PHX → DALPhoenix to Dallas | Southwest Airlines | 74.3% | 75.4% | 1.48% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 23 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,459 flights90.6%
- 8am–11am897 flights86.0%
- 11am–2pm985 flights80.1%
- 2pm–5pm894 flights68.1%
- 5pm–8pm701 flights71.4%
- 8pm–5am317 flights77.9%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.6% of the time, against 68.1% 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 1,459 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX to DFW 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 DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.6% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 68.1%, a wide gap of 22.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.6%
- 8–11am86.0%
- 11am–2pm80.1%
- 2–5pm68.1%
- 5–8pm71.4%
- 8pm–5am77.9%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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 73.1% on time, 13 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.
The day of the week is close to irrelevant here: 3 points separates the best day from the worst. Weekly demand peaks are not what drives the delays on this operation.
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 74,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 74,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 74,432 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 24,000 minutes out of 74,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 2.36% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.34%.
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 a little over an hour, 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.0% on time across 5,258 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 5,253 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 DFW 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. April runs 86.5% on time and July 73.1%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 5,111 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.2% of the 5,253 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 PHX to DFW?
American Airlines leads at 80.9% on time across 4,607 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 79.5%, 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 90.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 68.1%, 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 73.1% on time, compared with 86.5% in April. Across the year that is 13 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
- American Airlines on PHX to DFW80.9%
- Frontier Airlines on PHX to DFW79.5%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record90.0%
- American Airlines on-time record80.9%
- 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. 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.
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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.