Route reliability record
PHX→DSM
Phoenix to Des Moines
- Flights
- 1,067
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,149 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,067 PHX to DSM flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly PHX to DSM: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.9%, against 77.5% for the route overall.
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
77.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,049 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.41%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
77.3% on time across 494 flights
These figures cover 1,067 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to DSM
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 352 | 80.3% | 48 min | 1.42% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 48 | 79.2% | 46 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 494 | 77.3% | 55 min | 1.82% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 166 | 72.0% | 43 min | 0.60% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 71.4% | 33 min | 0.00% | C+ |
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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am403 flights82.5%
- 11am–2pm210 flights78.3%
- 2pm–5pm147 flights79.0%
- 5pm–8pm211 flights71.0%
- 8pm–5am96 flights66.3%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 82.5% of the time, against 66.3% for the overnight window. That is 16 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 403 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
April is the best month on the calendar at 88.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 127 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 72.9%. 12 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 44% of the 12,000 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.
- 44%Carrier
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 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 11,756 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, 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 5,177 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.41% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.
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 last about 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,149 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 80.6% on time across 1,064 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,067 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DSM after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,067 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 77.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,049 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to DSM questions
How often is PHX to DSM delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.5% of the 1,067 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is PHX to DSM compared with the rest of the country?
77.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PHX to DSM?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 82.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.3%, 16 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 DSM?
May is the weakest month at 71.3% on time, compared with 88.5% in April. Across the year that is 17 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
- DSM to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to DSM80.3%
- American Airlines on PHX to DSM77.3%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to DSM72.0%
- PHX to DEN, a related route77.2%
- ORD to DSM, a related route71.0%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.3%
- Envoy Air on-time record79.2%
- American Airlines on-time record77.3%
- 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 DSM and DSM 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.