Route reliability record
SEA→PHX
Seattle to Phoenix
- Flights
- 7,205
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,107 mi
- Carriers
- 7
This route lands a B+, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 7,205 SEA to PHX flights, of which Envoy Air flew 760 at 85.3% on time.
Best time to fly SEA to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.0%, against 78.2% for the route overall.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 85.3% on time across 760 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 7,124 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.74%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
85.3% on time across 760 flights
These figures cover 7,205 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 SEA to PHX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 85.3% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 65.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,042 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 760 | 85.3% | 74 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 221 | 83.2% | 76 min | 0.45% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,768 | 80.9% | 67 min | 0.96% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,889 | 79.2% | 45 min | 0.66% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 409 | 78.5% | 80 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 116 | 74.5% | 146 min | 5.17% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,042 | 65.1% | 49 min | 0.77% | C+ |
The spread between Envoy and Southwest is 20 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 20 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on SEA 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.
- Delta 241907:1089.8% · 365 flights
- Alaska 70014:0278.4% · 356 flights
- Delta 269818:3073.7% · 348 flights
- Alaska 74415:5574.7% · 333 flights
- Alaska 63219:5574.0% · 323 flights
- Delta 244213:3080.4% · 314 flights
- Delta 244709:5578.9% · 312 flights
- Alaska 60608:1586.9% · 296 flights
- Delta 244911:5078.8% · 250 flights
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Seattle 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. SEA → PHXSeattle to Phoenix | Envoy Air | 85.3% | 85.3% | 0.00% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. SEA → PHXSeattle to Phoenix | Delta Air Lines | 80.1% | 80.9% | 0.96% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2419 07:10 |
| 3. SEA → PHXSeattle to Phoenix | Alaska Airlines | 78.7% | 79.2% | 0.66% | 5am–8am, Tue | AS 606 08:15 |
| 4. SEA → PHXSeattle to Phoenix | SkyWest Airlines | 78.1% | 78.5% | 0.49% | 8am–11am, Fri | — |
| 5. SEA → PHXSeattle to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 64.6% | 65.1% | 0.77% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 20 points, against 20 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,222 flights91.3%
- 8am–11am1,086 flights82.0%
- 11am–2pm1,656 flights75.1%
- 2pm–5pm1,257 flights76.5%
- 5pm–8pm1,189 flights71.5%
- 8pm–5am795 flights72.1%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.3% of the time, against 71.5% for the evening window. That is 20 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 1,656 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SEA 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 SEA to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 71.5%, a wide gap of 19.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.3%
- 8–11am82.0%
- 11am–2pm75.1%
- 2–5pm76.5%
- 5–8pm71.5%
- 8pm–5am72.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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 67.1% on time, 19 points below February, the best at 85.8%. 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 686 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.6%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 43% of the 88,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 88,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 24 to one. The split is drawn from 88,403 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 38,000 of the 88,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.74%, 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
5.5% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,107 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 82.2% on time across 7,202 flights, 4 points above 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 7,205 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 85.8% on time and July 67.1%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 7,124 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SEA to PHX questions
How often is SEA to PHX delayed?
Roughly 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 21.8% of the 7,205 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SEA to PHX?
Envoy Air leads at 85.3% on time across 760 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 65.1%, a gap of 20 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 SEA to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.5%, 20 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 SEA to PHX?
July is the weakest month at 67.1% on time, compared with 85.8% in February. Across the year that is 19 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 SEA — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on SEA to PHX85.3%
- American Airlines on SEA to PHX83.2%
- Delta Air Lines on SEA to PHX80.9%
- Alaska Airlines on SEA to PHX79.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on SEA to PHX78.5%
- Frontier Airlines on SEA to PHX74.5%
- Southwest Airlines on SEA to PHX65.1%
- SEA to LAX, a related route82.0%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- SEA to SFO, a related route59.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record85.3%
- American Airlines on-time record83.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. SEA to PHX and PHX to SEA 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.