Route reliability record
SNA→PHX
Santa Ana to Phoenix
- Flights
- 4,577
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 338 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in six arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 4,577 flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 2,424 at 83.6% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.4%. That gap is worth roughly 50 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,538 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.74%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Southwest
83.6% on time across 2,424 flights
These figures cover 4,577 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SNA to PHX
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,424 | 83.6% | 48 min | 0.70% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 289 | 82.6% | 89 min | 2.42% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,864 | 80.9% | 86 min | 0.54% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 83.6%, 3 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 16 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am683 flights91.1%
- 8am–11am878 flights90.5%
- 11am–2pm997 flights81.3%
- 2pm–5pm892 flights75.1%
- 5pm–8pm812 flights75.2%
- 8pm–5am315 flights83.5%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.1% of the time, against 75.1% for the afternoon window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 71.0%. February is the strongest month at 88.4%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 17 points.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 89.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.7%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 53,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 3%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. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 53,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 21 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.
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 91.1% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.74%, below the national 1.80% 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
5.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 338 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 runs 79.9% on time across 4,578 flights, within 3 points 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 4,577 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.
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 88.4% on time and November 71.0%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of November before you think about anything else.
Common questions
SNA to PHX questions
How often is SNA to PHX delayed?
About one flight in six arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.6% of the 4,577 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SNA to PHX?
Southwest Airlines leads at 83.6% on time across 2,424 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 80.9%, a gap of 3 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 SNA to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.1% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 75.1%, 16 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 SNA to PHX?
November is the weakest month at 71.0% on time, compared with 88.4% in February. Across the year that is 17 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 SNA — the return legseparate record
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on-time record83.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record82.6%
- American Airlines on-time record80.9%
- 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. SNA to PHX and PHX to SNA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.