Route reliability record
PHX→SNA
Phoenix to Santa Ana
- Flights
- 4,643
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 338 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That rests on 4,643 PHX to SNA flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,950 at 79.2% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to SNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.2% of the time and Saturday flights 83.2%, against 79.4% 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
79.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,615 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.45%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
79.2% on time across 1,950 flights
These figures cover 4,643 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 SNA
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 281 | 87.0% | 54 min | 1.07% | A |
| American Airlines | 1,950 | 79.2% | 66 min | 0.41% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,412 | 78.7% | 45 min | 0.41% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 79.2%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on PHX to SNA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix to Santa Ana
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHX → LAXPhoenix to Los Angeles | SkyWest Airlines | 89.4% | 90.0% | 0.71% | 5am–8am, Tue | OO 4119 10:45 |
| 2. PHX → BURPhoenix to Burbank | Envoy Air | 83.9% | 84.4% | 0.55% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. PHX → LAXPhoenix to Los Angeles | American Airlines | 81.3% | 81.7% | 0.54% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. PHX → LAXPhoenix to Los Angeles | Frontier Airlines | 81.0% | 82.0% | 1.20% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 5. PHX → ONTPhoenix to Ontario | American Airlines | 79.2% | 79.9% | 0.84% | 5am–8am, 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 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am456 flights93.2%
- 8am–11am982 flights86.5%
- 11am–2pm946 flights77.3%
- 2pm–5pm864 flights73.8%
- 5pm–8pm737 flights70.9%
- 8pm–5am658 flights79.1%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.2% of the time, against 70.9% for the evening window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 982 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX to SNA 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 SNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 70.9%, a wide gap of 22.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.2%
- 8–11am86.5%
- 11am–2pm77.3%
- 2–5pm73.8%
- 5–8pm70.9%
- 8pm–5am79.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 12 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, 12 points below February, the best at 84.6%. 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 429 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.4%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 51,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 51,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 31 to one. The split is drawn from 51,451 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 19,000 of the 51,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.45%, 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
5.5% 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 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 338 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 runs 82.3% on time across 4,636 flights, within 3 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 4,643 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 SNA 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. February runs 84.6% on time and July 72.3%, a swing of 12 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 4,615 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to SNA questions
How often is PHX to SNA delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.6% of the 4,643 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to SNA?
American Airlines leads at 79.2% on time across 1,950 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 78.7%, a gap of half a point. 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 SNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 70.9%, 22 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 SNA?
July is the weakest month at 72.3% on time, compared with 84.6% in February. 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
- SNA to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on PHX to SNA87.0%
- American Airlines on PHX to SNA79.2%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to SNA78.7%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- SFO to SNA, a related route77.4%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record87.0%
- American Airlines on-time record79.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.7%
- 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 SNA and SNA 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.