Route reliability record
PHX→PSP
Phoenix to Palm Springs
- Flights
- 1,439
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 261 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, about a point 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,439 PHX to PSP flights, of which American Airlines flew 707 at 80.2% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to PSP: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.6%, against 78.3% 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
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,422 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.97%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
80.2% on time across 707 flights
These figures cover 1,439 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to PSP
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 | 48 | 85.4% | 42 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 707 | 80.2% | 72 min | 0.85% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 684 | 75.8% | 82 min | 1.17% | B |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 80.2%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on PHX to PSP
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix to Palm Springs
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 → PSPPhoenix to Palm Springs | American Airlines | 79.5% | 80.2% | 0.85% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 2. PHX → PSPPhoenix to Palm Springs | SkyWest Airlines | 74.9% | 75.8% | 1.17% | 8am–11am, Tue | OO 4922 20:20 |
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 20 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am60 flights80.0%
- 8am–11am311 flights82.4%
- 11am–2pm196 flights86.0%
- 2pm–5pm270 flights79.3%
- 5pm–8pm357 flights77.7%
- 8pm–5am245 flights66.1%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 86.0% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 66.1%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 357 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX to PSP 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 PSP, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 86.0% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 66.1%, a wide gap of 19.9 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am80.0%
- 8–11am82.4%
- 11am–2pm86.0%
- 2–5pm79.3%
- 5–8pm77.7%
- 8pm–5am66.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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 66.9% on time, 16 points below February, the best at 83.2%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 141 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.2%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 24,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 23,557 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,313 of the 24,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.97% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 261 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 80.8% on time across 1,439 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 1,439 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 PSP 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 83.2% on time and July 66.9%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,422 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to PSP questions
How often is PHX to PSP 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 21.7% of the 1,439 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to PSP?
American Airlines leads at 80.2% on time across 707 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 PSP?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 86.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.1%, 20 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 PSP?
July is the weakest month at 66.9% on time, compared with 83.2% in February. Across the year that is 16 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
- PSP to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- American Airlines on PHX to PSP80.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to PSP75.8%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- SFO to PSP, a related route73.9%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record85.4%
- American Airlines on-time record80.2%
- 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 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. PHX to PSP and PSP 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.