Carrier route record
WNPHX→SJC
Southwest Airlines · Phoenix to San Jose
- Flights
- 1,837
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 62%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on PHX to SJC 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 roughly 50 minutes on average. That rests on 1,837 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on PHX to SJC from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,829 completed flights
Avg delay
48 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.38%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.2%
Every carrier on PHX to SJC, 2,979 flights
These figures cover 1,837 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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
Southwest against every carrier on PHX to SJC
Southwest flew 1,837 of the 2,979 flights on PHX to SJC, most of the route. Its 76.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 87.3% to American at 76.6%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 190 | 87.3% | 45 min | 0.53% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 269 | 85.0% | 74 min | 0.74% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,837 | 76.9% | 48 min | 0.38% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 683 | 76.6% | 74 min | 0.88% | B+ |
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.
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 36 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am260 flights96.5%
- 8am–11am386 flights90.7%
- 11am–2pm222 flights80.2%
- 2pm–5pm320 flights75.8%
- 5pm–8pm319 flights60.1%
- 8pm–5am330 flights60.2%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.1% on time, against 96.5% 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 386 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on PHX to SJC through the year
June is the worst month at 65.2% on time, 23 points below September, the best at 88.5%. 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 180 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.4%, a spread of 10 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on PHX to SJC runs when it is late
The 423 late arrivals split 192 under half an hour, 122 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 109 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early360 flights19.7%
- Within 15 min1,046 flights57.2%
- 15–29 min late192 flights10.5%
- 30–59 min late122 flights6.7%
- 1–2 hours late83 flights4.5%
- 2+ hours late26 flights1.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,829 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
154 of 559 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 28% of them. Only 18 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on PHX to SJC
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 September 2025, 8 hours 47 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 September 2025 | 8 hours 47 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 23 August 2026 | 4 hours 35 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 9 November 2025 | 4 hours 21 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 August 2026 | 4 hours 7 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 17 February 2026 | 3 hours 51 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 62% of the 20,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 62%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 5%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
62% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 46 to one. The split is drawn from 20,273 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 96.5% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.38%, 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 costs
6.0% 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 roughly 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 621 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 77.7% on time across 1,869 flights, within about a point 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 1,837 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 Southwest on PHX to SJC
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 88.5% on time and June 65.2%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,829 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to SJC, every carrier
- Southwest on SJC to PHX, the return leg
- Envoy Air on PHX to SJC87.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to SJC85.0%
- American Airlines on PHX to SJC76.6%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International (SJC) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.