Route reliability record
PHX→MCI
Phoenix to Kansas City
- Flights
- 2,474
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,044 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That rests on 2,474 PHX to MCI flights, of which American Airlines flew 586 at 77.3% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to MCI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.5% of the time and Saturday flights 81.8%, against 76.0% 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
76.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,450 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
77.3% on time across 586 flights
These figures cover 2,474 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to MCI
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 71 | 90.0% | 91 min | 1.41% | A |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 55 | 81.8% | 46 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 117 | 80.9% | 56 min | 0.85% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 586 | 77.3% | 64 min | 1.02% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,645 | 74.3% | 49 min | 0.43% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 77.3%, 3 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix to Kansas City
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 → MCIPhoenix to Kansas City | American Airlines | 76.5% | 77.3% | 1.02% | 2pm–5pm, Tue | — |
| 2. PHX → MCIPhoenix to Kansas City | Southwest Airlines | 74.0% | 74.3% | 0.43% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 33 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am290 flights95.5%
- 8am–11am758 flights85.0%
- 11am–2pm325 flights73.6%
- 2pm–5pm377 flights68.7%
- 5pm–8pm499 flights63.5%
- 8pm–5am225 flights63.0%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.0% on time, against 95.5% 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 758 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX to MCI 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 MCI, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 63.0%, a wide gap of 32.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.5%
- 8–11am85.0%
- 11am–2pm73.6%
- 2–5pm68.7%
- 5–8pm63.5%
- 8pm–5am63.0%
best all US flightsScale 55% 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.
July is the worst month at 65.6% on time, 21 points below February, the best at 86.1%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 272 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 72.5%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 31,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 35 to one. The split is drawn from 31,086 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 31,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.61%, 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
5.9% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,044 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.
The return leg runs 78.9% on time across 2,479 flights, within 3 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 2,474 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 MCI 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. February runs 86.1% on time and July 65.6%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,450 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to MCI questions
How often is PHX to MCI 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 24.0% of the 2,474 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to MCI?
American Airlines leads at 77.3% on time across 586 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 74.3%, a gap of 3 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 MCI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.0%, 33 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 MCI?
July is the weakest month at 65.6% on time, compared with 86.1% in February. 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
- MCI to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on PHX to MCI80.9%
- American Airlines on PHX to MCI77.3%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to MCI74.3%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- DEN to MCI, a related route76.5%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record90.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record81.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record80.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. PHX to MCI and MCI 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.