Route reliability record
PHX→FAT
Phoenix to Fresno
- Flights
- 1,452
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 493 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,452 PHX to FAT flights, of which American Airlines flew 802 at 80.0% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to FAT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.2%, against 79.3% 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
79.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,442 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.55%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
80.0% on time across 802 flights
These figures cover 1,452 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 FAT
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 105 | 91.4% | 31 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 802 | 80.0% | 87 min | 0.87% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 545 | 75.8% | 78 min | 0.18% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 80.0%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix to Fresno
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 → FATPhoenix to Fresno | American Airlines | 79.3% | 80.0% | 0.87% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. PHX → FATPhoenix to Fresno | SkyWest Airlines | 75.7% | 75.8% | 0.18% | 5am–8am, 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 24 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am143 flights92.3%
- 8am–11am340 flights84.7%
- 11am–2pm126 flights84.0%
- 2pm–5pm296 flights81.2%
- 5pm–8pm289 flights72.1%
- 8pm–5am258 flights68.2%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.3% of the time, against 68.2% for the overnight 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. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 340 flights scheduled in it.
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.
July is the worst month at 70.7% on time, 15 points below May, the best at 85.7%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 149 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.1%. 13 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 47% of the 24,000 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.
- 47%Carrier
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
45% 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 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 27 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 24,261 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, 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 11,000 of the 24,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.55%, 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 actually costs
7.5% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 493 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 runs 81.0% on time across 1,452 flights, within 2 points 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 1,452 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 FAT 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. May runs 85.7% on time and July 70.7%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,442 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to FAT questions
How often is PHX to FAT 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 20.7% of the 1,452 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to FAT?
American Airlines leads at 80.0% on time across 802 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 75.8%, a gap of 4 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 FAT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 68.2%, 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 FAT?
July is the weakest month at 70.7% on time, compared with 85.7% in May. 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.
Related
Where to go next
- FAT to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on PHX to FAT91.4%
- American Airlines on PHX to FAT80.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to FAT75.8%
- PHX to DEN, a related route77.2%
- SAN to FAT, a related route78.9%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record91.4%
- American Airlines on-time record80.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record75.8%
- 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 FAT and FAT to PHX are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed PHX to FAT’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.