Route reliability record
SAN→PHX
San Diego to Phoenix
- Flights
- 6,022
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 304 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 6,022 SAN to PHX flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,663 at 80.5% on time.
Best time to fly SAN to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.4% of the time and Saturday flights 83.5%, against 73.5% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 80.5% on time across 1,663 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,918 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.59%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
80.5% on time across 1,663 flights
These figures cover 6,022 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 SAN to PHX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 80.5% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 63.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 593 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,663 | 80.5% | 124 min | 0.78% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 181 | 78.7% | 46 min | 1.66% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 3,210 | 71.6% | 50 min | 1.43% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 375 | 71.2% | 70 min | 0.80% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 593 | 63.2% | 53 min | 5.23% | D− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 5.2% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly San Diego to Phoenix
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. SAN → PHXSan Diego to Phoenix | American Airlines | 79.9% | 80.5% | 0.78% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. SAN → PHXSan Diego to Phoenix | Frontier Airlines | 70.6% | 71.2% | 0.80% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 3. SAN → PHXSan Diego to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 70.6% | 71.6% | 1.43% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. SAN → PHXSan Diego to Phoenix | SkyWest Airlines | 59.9% | 63.2% | 5.23% | 8am–11am, 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 28 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am825 flights89.4%
- 8am–11am1,153 flights85.9%
- 11am–2pm1,039 flights72.5%
- 2pm–5pm1,378 flights65.5%
- 5pm–8pm958 flights61.7%
- 8pm–5am669 flights67.5%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.7% on time, against 89.4% for the 5am–8am 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 1,378 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SAN to PHX 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 SAN to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 61.7%, a wide gap of 27.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.4%
- 8–11am85.9%
- 11am–2pm72.5%
- 2–5pm65.5%
- 5–8pm61.7%
- 8pm–5am67.5%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 61.7% on time, 22 points below February, the best at 84.1%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 554 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 65.7%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 105,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
58% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 105,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 25 to one. The split is drawn from 104,799 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 89.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.59% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.9% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 304 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.4% on time across 6,051 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 6,022 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 PHX 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 84.1% on time and July 61.7%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 5,918 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAN to PHX questions
How often is SAN to PHX delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.5% of the 6,022 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SAN to PHX?
American Airlines leads at 80.5% on time across 1,663 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 63.2%, a gap of 17 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 SAN to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.7%, 28 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 SAN to PHX?
July is the weakest month at 61.7% on time, compared with 84.1% in February. Across the year that is 22 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
- PHX to SAN — the return legseparate record
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- American Airlines on SAN to PHX80.5%
- Alaska Airlines on SAN to PHX78.7%
- Southwest Airlines on SAN to PHX71.6%
- Frontier Airlines on SAN to PHX71.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on SAN to PHX63.2%
- SAN to SFO, a related route59.5%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- SAN to DEN, a related route78.4%
- American Airlines on-time record80.5%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record78.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record71.6%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. SAN to PHX and PHX to SAN 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.