Route reliability record
PHX→PIT
Phoenix to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 812
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,814 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four 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 812 PHX to PIT flights, of which American Airlines flew 373 at 78.9% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to PIT: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.0% of the time and Saturday flights 86.6%, against 76.3% 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
76.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 805 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.62%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
78.9% on time across 373 flights
These figures cover 812 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to PIT
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 373 | 78.9% | 77 min | 0.54% | B+ |
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 66 | 78.5% | 76 min | 1.52% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 373 | 73.2% | 65 min | 0.54% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 78.9%, 6 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 Pittsburgh
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 → PITPhoenix to Pittsburgh | American Airlines | 78.5% | 78.9% | 0.54% | 2pm–5pm, Tue | — |
| 2. PHX → PITPhoenix to Pittsburgh | Southwest Airlines | 72.8% | 73.2% | 0.54% | 8am–11am, 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 12 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am13 flights—
- 8am–11am43 flights86.0%
- 11am–2pm131 flights80.8%
- 2pm–5pm516 flights74.6%
- 5pm–8pm104 flights73.8%
- 8pm–5am5 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 86.0% of the time, against 73.8% for the evening window. That is 12 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 516 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 88.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 74 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.8%. 22 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 41%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
- 0%Extreme weather
51% 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 51 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 13,525 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, 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 5,543 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.62%, 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 1,814 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 78.4% on time across 811 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 812 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in PIT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 812 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 76.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 805 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to PIT questions
How often is PHX to PIT 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 23.7% of the 812 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 PIT?
American Airlines leads at 78.9% on time across 373 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 73.2%, 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 PIT?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 86.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.8%, 12 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 March delays on PHX to PIT?
March is the weakest month at 63.9% on time, compared with 88.1% in September. Across the year that is 24 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
- PIT to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on PHX to PIT78.9%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to PIT73.2%
- PHX to DEN, a related route77.2%
- ORD to PIT, a related route74.9%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.8%
- American Airlines on-time record78.9%
- Allegiant Air on-time record78.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record73.2%
- 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 PIT and PIT 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.