Carrier route record
WNPHX→PIT
Southwest Airlines · Phoenix to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 373
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 46%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on PHX to PIT sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 373 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on PHX to PIT runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 44 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 370 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.54%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.3%
Every carrier on PHX to PIT, 812 flights
These figures cover 373 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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
Southwest against every carrier on PHX to PIT
Southwest flew 373 of the 812 flights on PHX to PIT, about 46% of it. Its 73.2% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 78.9% to Southwest at 73.2%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 373 | 78.9% | 77 min | 0.54% | B+ |
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 66 | 78.5% | 76 min | 1.52% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 373 | 73.2% | 65 min | 0.54% | C+ |
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am13 flights—
- 8am–11am30 flights90.0%
- 11am–2pm115 flights81.7%
- 2pm–5pm153 flights66.9%
- 5pm–8pm61 flights61.7%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.7% on time, against 90.0% for the 8am–11am 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 153 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on PHX to PIT through the year
June is the worst month at 50.0% on time, 37 points below October, the best at 87.1%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 35 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 91.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.8%. 31 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 60% of the 6,453 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.
- 60%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 60%, 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 3,853 of the 6,453 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,453 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.0% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.54%, 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.2% 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 72.8% on time across 373 flights, within half a point 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. 373 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.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on PHX to PIT
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 373 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 73.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 370 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to PIT, every carrier
- Southwest on PIT to PHX, the return leg
- American Airlines on PHX to PIT78.9%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.