Route reliability record
TUS→PHX
Tucson to Phoenix
- Flights
- 3,511
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 109 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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 an hour and a half on average. That rests on 3,511 TUS to PHX flights, of which American Airlines flew 365 at 87.8% on time.
Best time to fly TUS to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.3%, against 83.6% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 87.8% on time across 365 flights.
Key figures
On time
83.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,491 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.51%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
87.8% on time across 365 flights
These figures cover 3,511 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on TUS to PHX
The three carriers here are closely matched: 5 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 365 | 87.8% | 67 min | 1.37% | A |
| Envoy Air | 558 | 85.8% | 70 min | 0.54% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 2,227 | 82.6% | 93 min | 0.45% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 361 | 81.7% | 57 min | 0.00% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 87.8%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Tucson 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. TUS → PHXTucson to Phoenix | American Airlines | 86.6% | 87.8% | 1.37% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. TUS → PHXTucson to Phoenix | Envoy Air | 85.3% | 85.8% | 0.54% | 8am–11am, Fri | — |
| 3. TUS → PHXTucson to Phoenix | SkyWest Airlines | 82.2% | 82.6% | 0.45% | 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 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am684 flights90.8%
- 8am–11am713 flights88.0%
- 11am–2pm700 flights84.4%
- 2pm–5pm603 flights79.9%
- 5pm–8pm650 flights73.8%
- 8pm–5am161 flights81.6%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.8% of the time, against 73.8% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 713 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TUS 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 TUS to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 73.8%, a wide gap of 17.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.8%
- 8–11am88.0%
- 11am–2pm84.4%
- 2–5pm79.9%
- 5–8pm73.8%
- 8pm–5am81.6%
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 3,511 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
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 88.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 78.5%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 42% of the 48,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Carrier
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 48,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 47,815 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 20,000 of the 48,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.51%, 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
7.1% 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 an hour and a half, 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 81.0% on time across 3,508 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 3,511 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 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 73.8% on time against 90.8% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 17 points is the largest single thing you control here. American Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 3,491 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.4% of the 3,511 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on TUS to PHX?
American Airlines leads at 87.8% on time across 365 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 82.6%, a gap of 5 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 90.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.8%, 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 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.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to TUS — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- American Airlines on TUS to PHX87.8%
- Envoy Air on TUS to PHX85.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on TUS to PHX82.6%
- Southwest Airlines on TUS to PHX81.7%
- TUS to DEN, a related route83.9%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- TUS to LAX, a related route86.4%
- American Airlines on-time record87.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record85.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record82.6%
- 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. 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.
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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.