Route reliability record

PHX→SEA

Phoenix to Seattle

Flights: 7,317
Period: June 2025 to May 2026
Distance: 1,107 mi
Carriers: 7

This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in six arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 7,317 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,764 at 87.9% on time.

Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 87.9% on time across 1,764 flights.

On time

82.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 7,259 completed flights

Avg delay

54 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.63%

National rate is 1.80%

Best carrier

Delta

87.9% on time across 1,764 flights

These figures cover 7,317 flights between June 2025 and May 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.

Carrier by carrier

Which airline is most reliable on PHX to SEA

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 87.9% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 65.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,036 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on PHX to SEA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	1,764	87.9%	72 min	0.91%	A+
Envoy Air	647	86.5%	44 min	0.00%	A+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	191	85.3%	81 min	0.00%	A+
Alaska Airlines	2,926	84.4%	55 min	0.72%	B+
SkyWest Airlines	547	82.8%	60 min	0.55%	B+
American Airlinesthin sample	206	81.0%	52 min	0.49%	B+
Southwest Airlines	1,036	65.9%	43 min	0.48%	C+

The spread between Delta and Southwest is 22 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 22 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

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 17 points, against 22 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am1,385 flights89.7%
8am–11am1,164 flights82.5%
11am–2pm1,472 flights86.0%
2pm–5pm1,500 flights80.4%
5pm–8pm1,290 flights77.7%
8pm–5am506 flights72.7%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.7% of the time, against 72.7% for the overnight window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.

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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, June worst

June is the worst month at 77.1% on time, 13 points below February, the best at 90.3%. 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.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 79.7%. 6 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why this route gets delayed

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 69,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Late-arriving aircraft
47%
Carrier
33%
National Airspace System
16%
Extreme weather
4%
Security
0%

47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 69,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.

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 89.7% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.63%, below the national 1.80% 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

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.2% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

The 1,107 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.1% on time across 7,317 flights, 4 points below 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 7,317 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.

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 90.3% on time and June 77.1%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else.

Common questions

PHX to SEA questions

How often is PHX to SEA delayed?

About one flight in six arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.4% of the 7,317 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.

Which airline is most reliable on PHX to SEA?

Delta Air Lines leads at 87.9% on time across 1,764 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 65.9%, a gap of 22 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 SEA?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 72.7%, 17 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 SEA?

June is the weakest month at 77.1% on time, compared with 90.3% in February. 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.

Where to go next

Direction matters. PHX to SEA and SEA to PHX are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures