Route reliability record
PHX→SNA
Phoenix to Santa Ana
- Flights
- 4,578
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 338 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 4,578 flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 2,425 at 79.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.4%, 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
79.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,552 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.46%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Southwest
79.7% on time across 2,425 flights
These figures cover 4,578 flights between June 2025 and May 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.
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 | 289 | 86.3% | 62 min | 1.38% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,425 | 79.7% | 43 min | 0.41% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 1,864 | 79.0% | 63 min | 0.38% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 79.7%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am426 flights92.4%
- 8am–11am1,020 flights87.2%
- 11am–2pm807 flights78.2%
- 2pm–5pm900 flights73.5%
- 5pm–8pm736 flights72.1%
- 8pm–5am689 flights79.7%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.4% of the time, against 72.1% for the evening window. That is 20 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
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 4,578 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 76.0%. February is the strongest month at 84.6%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 9 points.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.3%. 11 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 51% of the 48,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% 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 48,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 32 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 largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 18,000 of the 48,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.46%, 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
5.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the roughly 50 minutes kind, 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 82.4% on time across 4,577 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 4,578 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: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 72.1% on time against 92.4% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 20 points is the largest single thing you control here. Southwest Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close.
Common questions
PHX to SNA questions
How often is PHX to SNA delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.1% of the 4,578 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to SNA?
Southwest Airlines leads at 79.7% on time across 2,425 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 79.0%, 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 92.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.1%, 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 November delays on PHX to SNA?
November is the weakest month at 76.0% on time, compared with 84.6% in February. Across the year that is 9 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-time record86.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record79.7%
- American Airlines on-time record79.0%
- 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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.