Route reliability record
SLC→PHX
Salt Lake City to Phoenix
- Flights
- 5,778
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 507 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 5,778 SLC to PHX flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,707 at 87.6% on time.
Best time to fly SLC to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.1%, against 83.5% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 87.6% on time across 1,707 flights.
Key figures
On time
83.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,737 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.54%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
87.6% on time across 1,707 flights
These figures cover 5,778 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 SLC to PHX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 87.6% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 78.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,854 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,707 | 87.6% | 56 min | 0.53% | A+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 209 | 85.6% | 75 min | 0.48% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,222 | 85.3% | 119 min | 0.25% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 708 | 82.3% | 84 min | 1.27% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 78 | 81.8% | 37 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,854 | 78.8% | 52 min | 0.49% | B+ |
Delta leads Southwest by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on SLC 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 Salt Lake City 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. SLC → PHXSalt Lake City to Phoenix | Delta Air Lines | 87.1% | 87.6% | 0.53% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 1447 07:45 |
| 2. SLC → PHXSalt Lake City to Phoenix | SkyWest Airlines | 85.1% | 85.3% | 0.25% | 8am–11am, Sat | OO 6327 08:17 |
| 3. SLC → PHXSalt Lake City to Phoenix | Frontier Airlines | 81.3% | 82.3% | 1.27% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
| 4. SLC → PHXSalt Lake City to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 78.4% | 78.8% | 0.49% | 5am–8am, 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 17 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am785 flights92.1%
- 8am–11am885 flights91.4%
- 11am–2pm1,385 flights85.5%
- 2pm–5pm921 flights79.2%
- 5pm–8pm992 flights77.3%
- 8pm–5am810 flights75.3%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.1% of the time, against 75.3% for the overnight 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 1,385 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SLC 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 SLC to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 75.3%, a wide gap of 16.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.1%
- 8–11am91.4%
- 11am–2pm85.5%
- 2–5pm79.2%
- 5–8pm77.3%
- 8pm–5am75.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 5,778 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
September is the best month on the calendar at 87.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 582 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 80.6%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 66,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 66,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 to one. The split is drawn from 66,488 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 25,000 of the 66,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.54%, 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
5.4% 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 507 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 runs 83.0% on time across 5,779 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 5,778 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: avoid the 8pm–5am departure. It runs 75.3% on time against 92.1% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 17 points is the largest single thing you control here. Delta Air Lines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 5,737 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SLC to PHX questions
How often is SLC to PHX delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.5% of the 5,778 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 SLC to PHX?
Delta Air Lines leads at 87.6% on time across 1,707 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 78.8%, a gap of 9 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 SLC to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 75.3%, 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 SLC to PHX?
November is the weakest month at 78.5% on time, compared with 87.8% in September. Across the year that is 9 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 SLC — the return legseparate record
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on SLC to PHX87.6%
- American Airlines on SLC to PHX85.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on SLC to PHX85.3%
- Frontier Airlines on SLC to PHX82.3%
- Southwest Airlines on SLC to PHX78.8%
- SLC to DEN, a related route79.0%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- SLC to LAX, a related route85.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record87.6%
- American Airlines on-time record85.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record85.3%
- 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. SLC to PHX and PHX to SLC 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.