Route reliability record
PHX→MRY
Phoenix to Monterey
- Flights
- 1,369
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 598 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 about an hour on average. That rests on 1,369 PHX to MRY flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly PHX to MRY: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.2%, against 80.2% 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
80.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,346 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.95%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
78.7% on time across 889 flights
These figures cover 1,369 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to MRY
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 | 231 | 88.5% | 37 min | 1.73% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines | 889 | 78.7% | 71 min | 0.56% | B+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 249 | 78.1% | 70 min | 1.61% | B |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix to Monterey
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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHX → MRYPhoenix to Monterey | SkyWest Airlines | 78.3% | 78.7% | 0.56% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. PHX → SJCPhoenix to San Jose | Southwest Airlines | 76.6% | 76.9% | 0.38% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. PHX → SJCPhoenix to San Jose | American Airlines | 75.9% | 76.6% | 0.88% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
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 11 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am104 flights84.6%
- 8am–11am322 flights85.3%
- 11am–2pm271 flights74.5%
- 2pm–5pm273 flights84.4%
- 5pm–8pm185 flights76.2%
- 8pm–5am214 flights75.6%
Scale runs 65% to 90%.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 74.5% on time against 85.3% for 8am–11am. 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 322 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX to MRY 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 MRY, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 85.3% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 74.5%, a wide gap of 10.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am84.6%
- 8–11am85.3%
- 11am–2pm74.5%
- 2–5pm84.4%
- 5–8pm76.2%
- 8pm–5am75.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 14 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.
Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 71.3%. August is the strongest month at 85.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 14 points. December was the busiest month here, with 132 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 76.0%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 52% of the 18,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
34% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 17,930 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,363 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.95% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.73%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.9% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 598 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 82.7% on time across 1,370 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 1,369 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 MRY 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. August runs 85.0% on time and October 71.3%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of October before you think about anything else. 1,346 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to MRY questions
How often is PHX to MRY 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 19.8% of the 1,369 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is PHX to MRY compared with the rest of the country?
80.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PHX to MRY?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 85.3% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 74.5%, 11 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 October delays on PHX to MRY?
October is the weakest month at 71.3% on time, compared with 85.0% in August. Across the year that is 14 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
- MRY to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on PHX to MRY88.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to MRY78.7%
- American Airlines on PHX to MRY78.1%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- LAX to MRY, a related route88.9%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record88.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record78.7%
- American Airlines on-time record78.1%
- 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 MRY and MRY 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.