Route reliability record

PHX→DFW

Phoenix to Dallas-Fort Worth

Flights: 5,139
Period: June 2025 to May 2026
Distance: 868 mi
Carriers: 5

This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. 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 5,139 flights, of which American Airlines flew 4,576 at 80.1% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.4%, 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.

On time

79.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,993 completed flights

Avg delay

78 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.45%

National rate is 1.80%

Best carrier

American

80.1% on time across 4,576 flights

These figures cover 5,139 flights between June 2025 and May 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: 2 points 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.

On-time performance by carrier on PHX to DFW
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	4,576	80.1%	77 min	2.53%	B
Frontier Airlines	531	78.4%	93 min	1.88%	B
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	21	76.2%	51 min	0.00%	B+

No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 80.1%, 2 points 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 24 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am1,418 flights90.2%
8am–11am840 flights85.7%
11am–2pm1,044 flights78.4%
2pm–5pm801 flights66.1%
5pm–8pm716 flights71.8%
8pm–5am320 flights75.2%

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 90.2% of the time, against 66.1% for the afternoon window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.

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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, July worst

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.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.3%. 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 79,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
36%
National Airspace System
29%
Carrier
28%
Extreme weather
7%
Security
0%

36% 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 79,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 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 90.2% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 2.45% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.39%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

7.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. 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 71.3% on time across 5,143 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 5,139 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.

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 5,139 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% 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 80.1% on time across 4,576 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 78.4%, a gap of 2 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 DFW?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.2% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 66.1%, 24 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.

Where to go next

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, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures