Route reliability record
PHX→EWR
Phoenix to Newark
- Flights
- 2,487
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,133 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 3 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 2,487 PHX to EWR flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,484 at 82.2% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to EWR: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.3% of the time and Friday flights 85.3%, against 80.0% 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
80.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,405 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.25%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
82.2% on time across 1,484 flights
These figures cover 2,487 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to EWR
The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,484 | 82.2% | 86 min | 1.95% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,003 | 76.7% | 67 min | 2.69% | B |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 82.2%, 6 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on PHX to EWR
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix to Newark
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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHX → JFKPhoenix to New York | Delta Air Lines | 82.1% | 85.1% | 3.48% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 546 06:00 |
| 2. PHX → EWRPhoenix to Newark | United Airlines | 80.6% | 82.2% | 1.95% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 3. PHX → JFKPhoenix to New York | American Airlines | 74.6% | 76.6% | 2.55% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. PHX → EWRPhoenix to Newark | American Airlines | 74.6% | 76.7% | 2.69% | 8pm–5am, Sat | AA 1967 15:15 |
| 5. PHX → JFKPhoenix to New York | JetBlue Airways | 68.8% | 72.3% | 4.90% | 8pm–5am, 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 27 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am305 flights94.3%
- 8am–11am665 flights78.8%
- 11am–2pm275 flights67.7%
- 2pm–5pm495 flights74.3%
- 5pm–8pm123 flights81.9%
- 8pm–5am624 flights83.5%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 67.7% on time against 94.3% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 665 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX to EWR 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 EWR, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.3% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 67.7%, a wide gap of 26.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.3%
- 8–11am78.8%
- 11am–2pm67.7%
- 2–5pm74.3%
- 5–8pm81.9%
- 8pm–5am83.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
August is the worst month at 70.4% on time, 21 points below April, the best at 91.3%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 236 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 85.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.2%, a spread of 11 points.
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 37,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% 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 16,000 minutes out of 37,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 37,144 reported delay minutes.
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 94.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.25% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.05%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.7% 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.
At 2,133 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 78.9% on time across 2,485 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 2,487 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 EWR 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 91.3% on time and August 70.4%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,405 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to EWR questions
How often is PHX to EWR 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 20.0% of the 2,487 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 EWR?
United Airlines leads at 82.2% on time across 1,484 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 76.7%, a gap of 6 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 EWR?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.3% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 67.7%, 27 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 August delays on PHX to EWR?
August is the weakest month at 70.4% on time, compared with 91.3% in April. Across the year that is 21 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
- EWR to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- United Airlines on PHX to EWR82.2%
- American Airlines on PHX to EWR76.7%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- United Airlines on-time record82.2%
- American Airlines on-time record76.7%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. PHX to EWR and EWR 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.