Route reliability record
SAT→PHX
San Antonio to Phoenix
- Flights
- 2,509
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 843 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 2,509 SAT to PHX flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 1,383 at 82.2% on time.
Best time to fly SAT to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.4%, against 81.2% 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
81.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,495 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.40%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
82.2% on time across 1,383 flights
These figures cover 2,509 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 SAT 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 65 | 83.1% | 57 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,383 | 82.2% | 48 min | 0.22% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 987 | 79.9% | 115 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 74 | 78.4% | 35 min | 0.00% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 82.2%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on SAT to PHX
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly San Antonio 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. SAT → PHXSan Antonio to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 82.0% | 82.2% | 0.22% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. SAT → PHXSan Antonio to Phoenix | American Airlines | 79.3% | 79.9% | 0.71% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2053 19:04 |
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 31 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am442 flights96.1%
- 8am–11am427 flights88.2%
- 11am–2pm419 flights87.3%
- 2pm–5pm514 flights74.2%
- 5pm–8pm535 flights70.5%
- 8pm–5am172 flights65.1%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 96.1% of the time, against 65.1% for the overnight window. That is 31 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 535 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SAT 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 SAT to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 96.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 65.1%, a wide gap of 31.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am96.1%
- 8–11am88.2%
- 11am–2pm87.3%
- 2–5pm74.2%
- 5–8pm70.5%
- 8pm–5am65.1%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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 57.2% on time, 31 points below March, the best at 87.7%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 252 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.9%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 36,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 7%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 36,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 35,608 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 96.1% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.40%, 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
6.5% 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.
The 843 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.0% on time across 2,510 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 2,509 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. March runs 87.7% on time and June 57.2%, a swing of 31 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,495 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAT to PHX questions
How often is SAT to PHX 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 18.8% of the 2,509 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 SAT to PHX?
Southwest Airlines leads at 82.2% on time across 1,383 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 79.9%, 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 SAT to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.1%, 31 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 SAT to PHX?
June is the weakest month at 57.2% on time, compared with 87.7% in March. Across the year that is 31 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 SAT — the return legseparate record
- San Antonio International (SAT) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on SAT to PHX82.2%
- American Airlines on SAT to PHX79.9%
- SAT to DFW, a related route79.4%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- SAT to DEN, a related route82.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record83.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record82.2%
- American Airlines on-time record79.9%
- 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. SAT to PHX and PHX to SAT 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.