Route reliability record
SNA→PHX
Santa Ana to Phoenix
- Flights
- 4,636
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 338 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 5 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 4,636 SNA to PHX flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 2,406 at 82.9% on time.
Best time to fly SNA to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.0% of the time and Saturday flights 87.1%, against 82.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 50 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,594 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.75%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
82.9% on time across 2,406 flights
These figures cover 4,636 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 SNA to PHX
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point 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 | 2,406 | 82.9% | 46 min | 0.67% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 281 | 82.8% | 82 min | 2.49% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,949 | 81.6% | 92 min | 0.62% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 82.9%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on SNA 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 Santa Ana 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. LAX → PHXLos Angeles to Phoenix | SkyWest Airlines | 86.6% | 87.2% | 0.71% | 11am–2pm, Tue | OO 3894 14:19 |
| 2. BUR → PHXBurbank to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 83.9% | 84.8% | 1.02% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. ONT → PHXOntario to Phoenix | American Airlines | 83.7% | 84.5% | 0.92% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. SNA → PHXSanta Ana to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 82.3% | 82.9% | 0.67% | 5am–8am, Mon | — |
| 5. SNA → PHXSanta Ana to Phoenix | American Airlines | 81.1% | 81.6% | 0.62% | 8am–11am, Tue | AA 628 06:45 |
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 about a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am673 flights91.0%
- 8am–11am883 flights90.0%
- 11am–2pm1,075 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm930 flights76.3%
- 5pm–8pm801 flights74.2%
- 8pm–5am274 flights85.1%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.0% of the time, against 74.2% for the evening 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 1,075 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SNA 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 SNA to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 74.2%, a wide gap of 16.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.0%
- 8–11am90.0%
- 11am–2pm81.2%
- 2–5pm76.3%
- 5–8pm74.2%
- 8pm–5am85.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
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. March was the busiest month here, with 428 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.6%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 55,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 55,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 30 to one. The split is drawn from 55,258 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 91.0% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.75%, 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 a little over an hour, 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 79.4% on time across 4,643 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 4,636 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 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. 4,594 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SNA to PHX questions
How often is SNA 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 17.7% of the 4,636 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 SNA to PHX?
Southwest Airlines leads at 82.9% on time across 2,406 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 81.6%, a gap of about a point. 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 91.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 74.2%, 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 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 SNA to PHX82.9%
- Frontier Airlines on SNA to PHX82.8%
- American Airlines on SNA to PHX81.6%
- SNA to SFO, a related route65.5%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- SNA to LAS, a related route82.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record82.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record82.8%
- American Airlines on-time record81.6%
- 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.
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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.