Carrier route record

OOTUS→PHX

SkyWest Airlines · Tucson to Phoenix

Flights: 2,251
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 66%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.

SkyWest on TUS to PHX lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,251 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, SkyWest's TUS to PHX record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 55 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

83.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,239 completed flights

Avg delay

92 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.49%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

83.8%

Every carrier on TUS to PHX, 3,397 flights

These figures cover 2,251 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

SkyWest against every carrier on TUS to PHX

SkyWest flew 2,251 of the 3,397 flights on TUS to PHX, most of the route. Its 83.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 83.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 86.6% to Southwest at 82.7%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.

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 (this page)	2,251	83.1%	92 min	0.49%	B+
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	237	82.7%	60 min	0.00%	B+

Departure window

When SkyWest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am429 flights88.1%
8am–11am475 flights87.8%
11am–2pm372 flights82.8%
2pm–5pm471 flights83.2%
5pm–8pm336 flights71.2%
8pm–5am168 flights81.3%

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 88.1% of the time, against 71.2% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 475 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

SkyWest on TUS to PHX through the year

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

June is the worst month at 77.8% on time, 9 points below February, the best at 87.1%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. April was the busiest month here, with 280 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.8%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why SkyWest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 53% of the 35,000 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
53%
Late-arriving aircraft
30%
National Airspace System
10%
Extreme weather
6%
Security
0%

The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, 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 18,000 of the 35,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 34,623 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 88.1% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.49%, 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 costs

7.8% 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 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 81.5% on time across 2,251 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 2,251 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 SkyWest on TUS to PHX

Put together: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 71.2% on time against 88.1% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 17 points is the largest single thing you control here. Envoy Air is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 2,239 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures