Route reliability record
PHX→PSP
Phoenix to Palm Springs
- Flights
- 1,445
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 261 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,445 PHX to PSP flights, of which American Airlines flew 680 at 78.5% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to PSP: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.4%, against 78.3% 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
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,430 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.97%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
78.5% on time across 680 flights
These figures cover 1,445 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% 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 PSP
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point 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 | 44 | 86.4% | 42 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 680 | 78.5% | 71 min | 0.74% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 721 | 77.5% | 75 min | 1.25% | B |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 78.5%, about a point 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.
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 | 77.9% | 78.5% | 0.74% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
| 2. PHX → PSPPhoenix to Palm Springs | SkyWest Airlines | 76.5% | 77.5% | 1.25% | 8am–11am, Tue | OO 4922 20:25 |
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 14 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am60 flights80.0%
- 8am–11am334 flights82.4%
- 11am–2pm149 flights84.9%
- 2pm–5pm294 flights79.0%
- 5pm–8pm356 flights75.7%
- 8pm–5am252 flights71.3%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 84.9% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 71.3%. 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 356 flights scheduled in it.
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.
July is the worst month at 69.4% on time, 14 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 87.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.4%. 17 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 48% of the 23,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 42%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% 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 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 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 22,599 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, 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 9,577 of the 23,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.97% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.07%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 79.6% on time across 1,445 flights, within about a point 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 1,445 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 69.4%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,430 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 1,445 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 PSP?
American Airlines leads at 78.5% on time across 680 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 77.5%, a gap of about a point. 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 84.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 71.3%, 14 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 69.4% on time, compared with 83.2% in February. 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
- PSP to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- American Airlines on PHX to PSP78.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to PSP77.5%
- PHX to DEN, a related route77.2%
- SFO to PSP, a related route76.7%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record86.4%
- American Airlines on-time record78.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record77.5%
- 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 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.