Route reliability record

RNO→PHX

Reno to Phoenix

Flights: 2,416
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 601 mi
Carriers: 5

This route earns a A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 2,416 flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,186 at 86.5% on time.

Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 81 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

85.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,394 completed flights

Avg delay

85 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.70%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

American

86.5% on time across 1,186 flights

These figures cover 2,416 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 RNO to PHX

The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points 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.

On-time performance by carrier on RNO to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	1	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
American Airlines	1,186	86.5%	108 min	0.84%	A+
Envoy Airthin sample	228	85.8%	51 min	0.88%	A+
Southwest Airlines	961	84.7%	68 min	0.42%	B+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	40	84.6%	87 min	2.50%	B

No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 86.5%, 2 points 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 17 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am721 flights93.3%
8am–11am424 flights88.2%
11am–2pm554 flights84.9%
2pm–5pm424 flights77.5%
5pm–8pm281 flights75.9%
8pm–5am12 flights—

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 93.3% of the time, against 75.9% for the evening window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 721 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 2,416 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.March best, November worst

Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 81.0%. March is the strongest month at 89.2%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 8 points. January was the busiest month here, with 216 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 80.9%. 8 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 52% of the 29,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
52%
Carrier
34%
National Airspace System
9%
Extreme weather
5%

52% 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 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 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 29,269 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 93.3% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.70%, 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 actually costs

5.6% 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 are the an hour and a half kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 601 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.2% on time across 2,416 flights, 6 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 6 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 2,416 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 75.9% on time against 93.3% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 17 points is the largest single thing you control here. American Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 2,394 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

RNO to PHX questions

How often is RNO to PHX delayed?

About one flight in seven arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.3% of the 2,416 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.

Which airline is most reliable on RNO to PHX?

American Airlines leads at 86.5% on time across 1,186 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 84.7%, a gap of 2 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 RNO to PHX?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 75.9%, 17 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 RNO to PHX?

November is the weakest month at 81.0% on time, compared with 89.2% in March. Across the year that is 8 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. RNO to PHX and PHX to RNO 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures