Carrier route record

WNPIT→PHX

Southwest Airlines · Pittsburgh to Phoenix

Flights: 373
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 46%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on PIT to PHX sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 373 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on PIT to PHX runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 48 extra late arrivals.

On time

72.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 368 completed flights

Avg delay

55 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.54%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.4%

Every carrier on PIT to PHX, 811 flights

These figures cover 373 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.

Carrier by carrier

Southwest against every carrier on PIT to PHX

Southwest flew 373 of the 811 flights on PIT to PHX, about 46% of it. Its 72.8% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 84.8% to Southwest at 72.8%. One 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.

On-time performance by carrier on PIT to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines	372	84.8%	108 min	0.54%	B+
Allegiant Airthin sample	66	73.8%	53 min	1.52%	C
Southwest Airlines (this page)	373	72.8%	55 min	0.54%	C+

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 33 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–8am27 flights—
8am–11am32 flights81.2%
11am–2pm79 flights79.5%
2pm–5pm204 flights69.0%
5pm–8pm31 flights48.4%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 40% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 48.4% on time, against 81.2% for the 8am–11am 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 204 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on PIT to PHX through the year

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

June is the worst month at 58.8% on time, 28 points below October, the best at 87.1%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 35 flights.

Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 86.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 64.0%. 22 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 5,487 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
55%
Carrier
33%
National Airspace System
12%
Extreme weather
1%

55% 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 5,487 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 55 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 split is drawn from 5,487 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 81.2% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.54%, below the national 1.81% 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

6.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. 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 last about 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 1,814 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

The return leg runs 73.2% on time across 373 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 373 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking Southwest on PIT to PHX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 373 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 72.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 368 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures