Route reliability record
PHX→RNO
Phoenix to Reno
- Flights
- 2,438
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 601 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B+, 2 points 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 about an hour on average. That rests on 2,438 PHX to RNO flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,099 at 81.9% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to RNO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.4%, against 79.4% 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
79.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,420 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.57%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
81.9% on time across 1,099 flights
These figures cover 2,438 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to RNO
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 81.9% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 73.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 966 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 332 | 87.9% | 57 min | 0.30% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 40 | 82.1% | 86 min | 2.50% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,099 | 81.9% | 70 min | 0.73% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 966 | 73.6% | 48 min | 0.41% | C+ |
American leads Southwest by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix to Reno
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 → RNOPhoenix to Reno | American Airlines | 81.3% | 81.9% | 0.73% | 5am–8am, Mon | — |
| 2. PHX → RNOPhoenix to Reno | Southwest Airlines | 73.3% | 73.6% | 0.41% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 24 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am183 flights92.9%
- 8am–11am697 flights87.0%
- 11am–2pm210 flights79.8%
- 2pm–5pm538 flights77.4%
- 5pm–8pm252 flights75.6%
- 8pm–5am558 flights69.1%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.9% of the time, against 69.1% for the overnight window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 697 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX to RNO 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 RNO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.9% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 69.1%, a wide gap of 23.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.9%
- 8–11am87.0%
- 11am–2pm79.8%
- 2–5pm77.4%
- 5–8pm75.6%
- 8pm–5am69.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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.
June is the worst month at 69.3% on time, 18 points below February, the best at 87.3%. 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 240 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.0%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 29,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 5%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 to one. The split is drawn from 28,749 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 29,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.57%, below the national 1.89% 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
6.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 601 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.7% on time across 2,438 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,438 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 RNO 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 87.3% on time and June 69.3%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,420 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to RNO questions
How often is PHX to RNO 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 20.6% of the 2,438 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to RNO?
American Airlines leads at 81.9% on time across 1,099 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 73.6%, a gap of 8 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 RNO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 69.1%, 24 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 June delays on PHX to RNO?
June is the weakest month at 69.3% on time, compared with 87.3% in February. Across the year that is 18 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
- RNO to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on PHX to RNO87.9%
- American Airlines on PHX to RNO81.9%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to RNO73.6%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- LAS to RNO, a related route78.9%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record87.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record82.1%
- 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 RNO and RNO 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.