Route reliability record
PHX→SBA
Phoenix to Santa Barbara
- Flights
- 1,432
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 455 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,432 PHX to SBA flights, of which Envoy Air flew 366 at 88.1% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to SBA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.0%, against 82.2% for the route overall.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 88.1% on time across 366 flights.
Key figures
On time
82.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,416 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.98%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
88.1% on time across 366 flights
These figures cover 1,432 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to SBA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 88.1% of the time; American Airlines manages 78.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 650 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 366 | 88.1% | 64 min | 0.82% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 8 | 87.5% | 84 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 408 | 82.7% | 68 min | 0.98% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 650 | 78.5% | 84 min | 1.08% | B |
Envoy leads American by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix to Santa Barbara
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 → SBAPhoenix to Santa Barbara | Envoy Air | 87.4% | 88.1% | 0.82% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 2. PHX → SBAPhoenix to Santa Barbara | SkyWest Airlines | 81.9% | 82.7% | 0.98% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 3. PHX → SBAPhoenix to Santa Barbara | American Airlines | 77.7% | 78.5% | 1.08% | 2pm–5pm, 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 16 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am126 flights89.7%
- 8am–11am337 flights88.1%
- 11am–2pm158 flights85.8%
- 2pm–5pm390 flights80.1%
- 5pm–8pm178 flights78.6%
- 8pm–5am243 flights73.9%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.7% of the time, against 73.9% for the overnight window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 390 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX to SBA 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 SBA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 73.9%, a wide gap of 15.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.7%
- 8–11am88.1%
- 11am–2pm85.8%
- 2–5pm80.1%
- 5–8pm78.6%
- 8pm–5am73.9%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 1,432 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
June is the worst month at 75.6% on time, 12 points below April, 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. March was the busiest month here, with 146 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 75.4%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 45% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Carrier
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 19,093 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,659 of the 19,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.98% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.0% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 455 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 85.7% on time across 1,432 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 1,432 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 SBA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: avoid the 8pm–5am departure. It runs 73.9% on time against 89.7% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 16 points is the largest single thing you control here. Envoy Air is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 1,416 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to SBA questions
How often is PHX to SBA delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.8% of the 1,432 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to SBA?
Envoy Air leads at 88.1% on time across 366 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 78.5%, a gap of 10 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 SBA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 73.9%, 16 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 SBA?
June is the weakest month at 75.6% on time, compared with 87.3% in April. Across the year that is 12 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
- SBA to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on PHX to SBA88.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to SBA82.7%
- American Airlines on PHX to SBA78.5%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- SFO to SBA, a related route78.2%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record88.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record87.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record82.7%
- 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 SBA and SBA to PHX are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed PHX to SBA’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.