Route reliability record
PHX→SAT
Phoenix to San Antonio
- Flights
- 2,510
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 843 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,510 PHX to SAT flights, of which American Airlines flew 989 at 80.1% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to SAT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.4%, against 77.0% 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
77.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,497 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.36%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
80.1% on time across 989 flights
These figures cover 2,510 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 SAT
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 80.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 74.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,382 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 65 | 90.8% | 34 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 989 | 80.1% | 76 min | 0.61% | B+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 74 | 78.1% | 42 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,382 | 74.1% | 50 min | 0.22% | C+ |
American leads Southwest by 6 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 San Antonio
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 → SATPhoenix to San Antonio | American Airlines | 79.6% | 80.1% | 0.61% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. PHX → SATPhoenix to San Antonio | Southwest Airlines | 73.9% | 74.1% | 0.22% | 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 37 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am186 flights96.2%
- 8am–11am714 flights87.0%
- 11am–2pm508 flights80.0%
- 2pm–5pm395 flights67.3%
- 5pm–8pm487 flights67.8%
- 8pm–5am220 flights59.2%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.2% on time, against 96.2% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 714 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX to SAT 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 SAT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 96.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 59.2%, a wide gap of 37.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am96.2%
- 8–11am87.0%
- 11am–2pm80.0%
- 2–5pm67.3%
- 5–8pm67.8%
- 8pm–5am59.2%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 100%.
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 72.3% on time, 14 points below January, the best at 86.7%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 252 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.8%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 59% of the 34,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 6%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
59% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 59 to one. The split is drawn from 33,646 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 34,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.36%, 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
6.7% 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 843 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 81.2% on time across 2,509 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 2,510 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 SAT 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. January runs 86.7% on time and July 72.3%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,497 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to SAT questions
How often is PHX to SAT delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.0% of the 2,510 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 SAT?
American Airlines leads at 80.1% on time across 989 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 74.1%, a gap of 6 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 SAT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 59.2%, 37 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 SAT?
July is the weakest month at 72.3% on time, compared with 86.7% in January. 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
- SAT to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- San Antonio International (SAT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on PHX to SAT80.1%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to SAT74.1%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- DFW to SAT, a related route67.8%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record90.8%
- American Airlines on-time record80.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record78.1%
- 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 SAT and SAT 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.