Route reliability record
PHX→SAN
Phoenix to San Diego
- Flights
- 6,051
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 304 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 6,051 PHX to SAN flights, of which Frontier Airlines flew 376 at 74.5% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to SAN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.8% of the time and Saturday flights 80.3%, against 69.4% for the route overall.
Frontier Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 74.5% on time across 376 flights.
Key figures
On time
69.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,956 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.32%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Frontier
74.5% on time across 376 flights
These figures cover 6,051 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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 SAN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Frontier Airlines arrives on time 74.5% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 63.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 593 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 182 | 87.1% | 52 min | 2.20% | A |
| Frontier Airlines | 376 | 74.5% | 80 min | 0.53% | C+ |
| American Airlines | 1,664 | 72.2% | 65 min | 0.78% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 3,236 | 67.4% | 48 min | 0.96% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 593 | 63.9% | 51 min | 5.06% | D− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 5.1% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix to San Diego
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 → SANPhoenix to San Diego | Frontier Airlines | 74.1% | 74.5% | 0.53% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. PHX → SANPhoenix to San Diego | American Airlines | 71.6% | 72.2% | 0.78% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. PHX → SANPhoenix to San Diego | Southwest Airlines | 66.8% | 67.4% | 0.96% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. PHX → SANPhoenix to San Diego | SkyWest Airlines | 60.7% | 63.9% | 5.06% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 33 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am820 flights88.8%
- 8am–11am1,156 flights78.1%
- 11am–2pm982 flights69.5%
- 2pm–5pm1,224 flights65.2%
- 5pm–8pm1,043 flights59.9%
- 8pm–5am826 flights56.2%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 56.2% on time, against 88.8% for the 5am–8am 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 1,224 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX to SAN 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 SAN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 56.2%, a wide gap of 32.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.8%
- 8–11am78.1%
- 11am–2pm69.5%
- 2–5pm65.2%
- 5–8pm59.9%
- 8pm–5am56.2%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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.
August is the worst month at 52.3% on time, 28 points below February, the best at 80.3%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 554 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 61.5%, a spread of 19 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 99,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 99,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. The split is drawn from 99,236 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 88.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.32% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.25%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.2% 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 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 304 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.5% on time across 6,022 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 6,051 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 SAN 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 80.3% on time and August 52.3%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 5,956 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to SAN questions
How often is PHX to SAN delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 30.6% of the 6,051 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to SAN?
Frontier Airlines leads at 74.5% on time across 376 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 63.9%, a gap of 11 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 SAN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 56.2%, 33 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 August delays on PHX to SAN?
August is the weakest month at 52.3% on time, compared with 80.3% in February. Across the year that is 28 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
- SAN to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on PHX to SAN87.1%
- Frontier Airlines on PHX to SAN74.5%
- American Airlines on PHX to SAN72.2%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to SAN67.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to SAN63.9%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- SFO to SAN, a related route62.2%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record87.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record74.5%
- American Airlines on-time record72.2%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PHX to SAN and SAN 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.