Carrier route record

WNPHX→RDU

Southwest Airlines · Phoenix to Raleigh

Flights: 322
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 40%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on PHX to RDU sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 322 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on PHX to RDU runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 57 extra late arrivals.

On time

71.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 317 completed flights

Avg delay

45 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.24%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

74.4%

Every carrier on PHX to RDU, 811 flights

These figures cover 322 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.

Carrier by carrier

Southwest against every carrier on PHX to RDU

Southwest flew 322 of the 811 flights on PHX to RDU, about 40% of it. Its 71.9% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 76.1% to Southwest at 71.9%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on PHX to RDU
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines	489	76.1%	66 min	0.82%	B+
Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample	322	71.9%	45 min	1.24%	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 23 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–8am—
8am–11am82 flights82.9%
11am–2pm123 flights70.2%
2pm–5pm69 flights69.7%
5pm–8pm48 flights60.4%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.4% on time, against 82.9% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 123 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on PHX to RDU through the year

Jul–Sep 202574 flights79.5%
Oct–Dec 202594 flights73.4%
Jan–Mar 202663 flights74.6%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights62.6%

Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 71.9% on time across 322 flights.

Southwest on PHX to RDU did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 79.5% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 62.6%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 81 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.8% on time and Saturday the weakest at 65.5%. 12 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 4,032 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
44%
Carrier
43%
National Airspace System
12%
Extreme weather
1%

44% 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 4,032 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 31 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 4,032 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, 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 1,728 of the 4,032 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.24% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.31%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

5.4% 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 about 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 1,891 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.2% on time across 322 flights, 6 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 6 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 322 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 RDU

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 322 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 71.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 317 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures