Route reliability record

TUS→PHX

Tucson to Phoenix

Flights: 3,397
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 109 mi
Carriers: 4

This route lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 3,397 flights, of which Envoy Air flew 571 at 86.6% on time.

Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 62 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

83.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,377 completed flights

Avg delay

86 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.56%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Envoy

86.6% on time across 571 flights

These figures cover 3,397 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 TUS to PHX

The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 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.

On-time performance by carrier on TUS to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Air	571	86.6%	70 min	0.53%	A+
American Airlinesthin sample	338	84.7%	94 min	1.48%	B
SkyWest Airlines	2,251	83.1%	92 min	0.49%	B+
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	237	82.7%	60 min	0.00%	B+

No carrier stands out. Envoy tops the table at 86.6%, 4 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 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am586 flights90.1%
8am–11am715 flights88.4%
11am–2pm661 flights85.9%
2pm–5pm609 flights81.9%
5pm–8pm628 flights74.4%
8pm–5am198 flights77.6%

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 90.1% of the time, against 74.4% for the evening 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. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 715 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 3,397 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, November worst

Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 78.7%. February is the strongest month at 88.3%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 10 points. March was the busiest month here, with 360 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.6%. 10 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. Carrier accounts for 44% of the 47,000 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.

Carrier
44%
Late-arriving aircraft
36%
National Airspace System
11%
Extreme weather
9%
Security
0%

36% 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 47,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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 split is drawn from 47,156 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 21,000 of the 47,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.56%, below the national 1.81% 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

7.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. 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 an hour and a half kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 109 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 82.3% on time across 3,395 flights, within 2 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 3,397 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: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 74.4% on time against 90.1% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 16 points is the largest single thing you control here. Envoy Air is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 3,377 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

TUS to PHX questions

How often is TUS 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 16.2% of the 3,397 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.

Which airline is most reliable on TUS to PHX?

Envoy Air leads at 86.6% on time across 571 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 83.1%, a gap of 4 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 TUS to PHX?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 74.4%, 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 TUS to PHX?

November is the weakest month at 78.7% on time, compared with 88.3% in February. Across the year that is 10 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. TUS to PHX and PHX to TUS 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures