Carrier route record
WNPHX→ELP
Southwest Airlines · Phoenix to El Paso
- Flights
- 1,210
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 48%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on PHX to ELP sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,210 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on PHX to ELP from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,202 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.66%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.1%
Every carrier on PHX to ELP, 2,498 flights
These figures cover 1,210 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on PHX to ELP
Southwest flew 1,210 of the 2,498 flights on PHX to ELP, about 48% of it. Its 74.7% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 85.4% to Southwest at 74.7%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 318 | 85.4% | 58 min | 0.63% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 851 | 80.0% | 82 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 119 | 79.0% | 76 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,210 | 74.7% | 47 min | 0.66% | C+ |
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 40 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–8am50 flights92.0%
- 8am–11am301 flights93.3%
- 11am–2pm193 flights81.9%
- 2pm–5pm193 flights72.4%
- 5pm–8pm270 flights63.4%
- 8pm–5am203 flights53.2%
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 53.2% on time, against 93.3% for the 8am–11am 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 301 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on PHX to ELP through the year
June is the worst month at 49.5% on time, 41 points below January, the best at 90.1%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 115 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.3%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 57% of the 14,000 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.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 5%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
57% 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 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 57 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 14,335 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, 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 5,348 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.66%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs
6.2% 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 roughly 45 minutes, 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.8% on time across 1,218 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,210 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 Southwest on PHX to ELP
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 90.1% on time and June 49.5%, a swing of 41 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,202 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to ELP, every carrier
- Southwest on ELP to PHX, the return leg
- Envoy Air on PHX to ELP85.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to ELP80.0%
- American Airlines on PHX to ELP79.0%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.