Route reliability record
PHX→ELP
Phoenix to El Paso
- Flights
- 2,483
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 347 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,483 PHX to ELP flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 773 at 81.2% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to ELP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.7%, against 75.9% 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
75.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,464 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.77%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
81.2% on time across 773 flights
These figures cover 2,483 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 ELP
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 81.2% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 71.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,202 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 340 | 81.4% | 60 min | 0.59% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 773 | 81.2% | 80 min | 0.91% | B+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 168 | 75.6% | 77 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,202 | 71.1% | 48 min | 0.83% | C+ |
SkyWest leads Southwest by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix to El Paso
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHX → ELPPhoenix to El Paso | SkyWest Airlines | 80.5% | 81.2% | 0.91% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 2. PHX → ELPPhoenix to El Paso | Southwest Airlines | 70.5% | 71.1% | 0.83% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 34 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am33 flights93.9%
- 8am–11am660 flights88.8%
- 11am–2pm454 flights83.4%
- 2pm–5pm429 flights71.9%
- 5pm–8pm484 flights68.1%
- 8pm–5am423 flights59.5%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.5% on time, against 93.9% 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 660 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX to ELP 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 ELP, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.9% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 59.5%, a wide gap of 34.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.9%
- 8–11am88.8%
- 11am–2pm83.4%
- 2–5pm71.9%
- 5–8pm68.1%
- 8pm–5am59.5%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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 59.1% on time, 29 points below January, the best at 88.6%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 237 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.6%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 35,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 35,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. The split is drawn from 34,847 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 14,000 of the 35,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.77%, below the national 1.89% 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
7.4% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 347 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.6% on time across 2,505 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,483 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 ELP 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. January runs 88.6% on time and July 59.1%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,464 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to ELP questions
How often is PHX to ELP delayed?
About 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 24.1% of the 2,483 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to ELP?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 81.2% on time across 773 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 71.1%, a gap of 10 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 ELP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 59.5%, 34 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 ELP?
July is the weakest month at 59.1% on time, compared with 88.6% in January. Across the year that is 29 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
- ELP to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on PHX to ELP81.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to ELP81.2%
- American Airlines on PHX to ELP75.6%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to ELP71.1%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- DFW to ELP, a related route68.1%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record81.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record81.2%
- American Airlines on-time record75.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. PHX to ELP and ELP 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.