Route reliability record
PHX→TUS
Phoenix to Tucson
- Flights
- 3,508
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 109 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 4 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 3,508 PHX to TUS flights, of which Envoy Air flew 557 at 87.7% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to TUS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.9%, against 81.0% 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
81.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,484 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.63%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
87.7% on time across 557 flights
These figures cover 3,508 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 TUS
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 87.7% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 81.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,227 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 557 | 87.7% | 53 min | 0.54% | A+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 364 | 81.3% | 71 min | 1.37% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 2,227 | 81.0% | 87 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 360 | 70.6% | 53 min | 0.83% | C+ |
Envoy leads SkyWest by 7 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 Tucson
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 → TUSPhoenix to Tucson | Envoy Air | 87.2% | 87.7% | 0.54% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 2. PHX → TUSPhoenix to Tucson | SkyWest Airlines | 80.6% | 81.0% | 0.49% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am225 flights92.4%
- 8am–11am771 flights87.5%
- 11am–2pm838 flights84.2%
- 2pm–5pm500 flights79.7%
- 5pm–8pm518 flights75.8%
- 8pm–5am656 flights70.4%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.4% of the time, against 70.4% for the overnight 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 838 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX to TUS 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 TUS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 70.4%, a wide gap of 22.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.4%
- 8–11am87.5%
- 11am–2pm84.2%
- 2–5pm79.7%
- 5–8pm75.8%
- 8pm–5am70.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
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.
June is the worst month at 74.3% on time, 13 points below December, the best at 87.4%. 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 360 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.4%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 52% of the 51,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Carrier
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% 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 18 to one. The split is drawn from 50,746 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 26,000 of the 51,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.63%, 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
7.2% 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.
At 109 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 83.6% on time across 3,511 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 3,508 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 TUS 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. December runs 87.4% on time and June 74.3%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 3,484 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to TUS questions
How often is PHX to TUS 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 19.0% of the 3,508 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 TUS?
Envoy Air leads at 87.7% on time across 557 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 81.0%, a gap of 7 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 TUS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 70.4%, 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 June delays on PHX to TUS?
June is the weakest month at 74.3% on time, compared with 87.4% in December. 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
- TUS to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on PHX to TUS87.7%
- American Airlines on PHX to TUS81.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to TUS81.0%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to TUS70.6%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- DEN to TUS, a related route76.9%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record87.7%
- American Airlines on-time record81.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record81.0%
- 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 TUS and TUS 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.