Route reliability record
PHX→SBP
Phoenix to San Luis Obispo
- Flights
- 1,240
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 509 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 6 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 1,240 PHX to SBP flights, of which American Airlines flew 530 at 83.6% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to SBP: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 91.4%, against 83.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 62 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,222 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.81%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
83.6% on time across 530 flights
These figures cover 1,240 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 SBP
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 83.6% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 77.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 379 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 331 | 90.2% | 50 min | 0.91% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 530 | 83.6% | 96 min | 0.75% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 379 | 77.4% | 70 min | 0.79% | B+ |
American leads SkyWest 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 Luis Obispo
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 → SBPPhoenix to San Luis Obispo | American Airlines | 83.0% | 83.6% | 0.75% | 11am–2pm, Sat | — |
| 2. PHX → SBPPhoenix to San Luis Obispo | SkyWest Airlines | 76.8% | 77.4% | 0.79% | 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 20 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am5 flights—
- 8am–11am334 flights89.4%
- 11am–2pm125 flights92.0%
- 2pm–5pm368 flights82.8%
- 5pm–8pm192 flights80.9%
- 8pm–5am216 flights72.0%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 92.0% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 72.0%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 368 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX to SBP 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 SBP, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 92.0% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 72.0%, a wide gap of 20.0 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am89.4%
- 11am–2pm92.0%
- 2–5pm82.8%
- 5–8pm80.9%
- 8pm–5am72.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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.
Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 76.2%. June is the strongest month at 88.9%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 13 points. December was the busiest month here, with 138 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 91.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.3%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 45%Carrier
- 6%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 49 to one. The split is drawn from 15,672 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,087 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.81%, 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
6.4% 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.
The 509 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 runs 81.7% on time across 1,240 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,240 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 SBP 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. June runs 88.9% on time and October 76.2%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of October before you think about anything else. 1,222 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to SBP questions
How often is PHX to SBP 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 16.5% of the 1,240 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 SBP?
American Airlines leads at 83.6% on time across 530 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 77.4%, 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 SBP?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 92.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 72.0%, 20 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 October delays on PHX to SBP?
October is the weakest month at 76.2% on time, compared with 88.9% in June. Across the year that is 13 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
- SBP to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on PHX to SBP90.2%
- American Airlines on PHX to SBP83.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to SBP77.4%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- SFO to SBP, a related route72.1%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record90.2%
- American Airlines on-time record83.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record77.4%
- 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 SBP and SBP 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.