Route reliability record
SFO→PHX
San Francisco to Phoenix
- Flights
- 4,727
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 651 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route 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 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 4,727 SFO to PHX flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 572 at 85.2% on time.
Best time to fly SFO to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.9% of the time and Saturday flights 80.4%, against 72.8% for the route overall.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 85.2% on time across 572 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,673 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.72%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
85.2% on time across 572 flights
These figures cover 4,727 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to PHX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 85.2% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 58.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,076 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 572 | 85.2% | 75 min | 0.70% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 1,488 | 79.9% | 59 min | 0.40% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 1,313 | 73.2% | 98 min | 0.91% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 278 | 61.1% | 106 min | 2.16% | D |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,076 | 58.8% | 57 min | 0.56% | D+ |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 26 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 26 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on SFO 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 Francisco to Phoenix
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SJC → PHXSan Jose to Phoenix | American Airlines | 85.3% | 86.1% | 0.88% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. SFO → PHXSan Francisco to Phoenix | SkyWest Airlines | 84.6% | 85.2% | 0.70% | 5am–8am, Wed | OO 6404 06:00 |
| 3. SFO → PHXSan Francisco to Phoenix | United Airlines | 79.6% | 79.9% | 0.40% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 2374 07:00 |
| 4. OAK → PHXOakland to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 77.3% | 77.5% | 0.26% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | — |
| 5. SJC → PHXSan Jose to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 77.2% | 77.7% | 0.64% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 30 points, against 26 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am841 flights93.9%
- 8am–11am848 flights76.1%
- 11am–2pm924 flights64.3%
- 2pm–5pm943 flights64.2%
- 5pm–8pm774 flights68.3%
- 8pm–5am397 flights69.5%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.9% of the time, against 64.2% for the afternoon window. That is 30 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 943 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SFO 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 SFO to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 64.2%, a wide gap of 29.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.9%
- 8–11am76.1%
- 11am–2pm64.3%
- 2–5pm64.2%
- 5–8pm68.3%
- 8pm–5am69.5%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
August is the worst month at 64.1% on time, 20 points below March, 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. March was the busiest month here, with 452 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 67.4%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 94,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 94,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 54 to one. The split is drawn from 93,932 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 93.9% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.72%, 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
9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 651 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 63.6% on time across 4,728 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,727 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 84.1% on time and August 64.1%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 4,673 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SFO to PHX questions
How often is SFO to PHX delayed?
Roughly 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 27.2% of the 4,727 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 SFO to PHX?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 85.2% on time across 572 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 58.8%, a gap of 26 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 SFO to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 64.2%, 30 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 August delays on SFO to PHX?
August is the weakest month at 64.1% on time, compared with 84.1% in March. Across the year that is 20 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 SFO — the return legseparate record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on SFO to PHX85.2%
- United Airlines on SFO to PHX79.9%
- American Airlines on SFO to PHX73.2%
- Frontier Airlines on SFO to PHX61.1%
- Southwest Airlines on SFO to PHX58.8%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- SFO to SEA, a related route72.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record85.2%
- United Airlines on-time record79.9%
- American Airlines on-time record73.2%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. SFO to PHX and PHX to SFO 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.