Route profile
ATL→PHX
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Atlanta to Phoenix, 1,587 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 49% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 11,407 flights. How this is calculated
ATL → PHX arrives on time 76.7% of the time; the return trip, PHX → ATL, arrives on time 83.0% of the time, a 6.3-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
ATL → PHX spends 25.2 minutes on the ground on a 1,587-mile trip: 16.7 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at ATL and 8.5 minutes from touchdown to gate at PHX.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why ATL → PHX flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
ATL → PHX cancelled 75 of 11,407 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 152. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 49.3% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 308 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 75 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
37 cancellations, 49.3% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
36 cancellations, 48.0% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
2 cancellations, 2.7% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
75 coded cancellations were recorded on ATL → PHX; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
43 min late
against a median of 2 min early
Percentiles over 11,407 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at PHX after arriving from ATL.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 44% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 22% | High risk |
| 60 min | 14% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 6.9% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 4.3% | Low risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 0.66% of the time and diverts 0.29% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 11,299 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 43 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 11,407 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
ATL → PHX flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 84.1% of the time, against 67.5% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 16.6 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 90.6% on time from 398 flights
- 7 AM: 87.2% on time from 667 flights
- 8 AM: 81.6% on time from 1,885 flights
- 9 AM: 79.9% on time from 239 flights
- 10 AM: 75.8% on time from 334 flights
- 11 AM: 84.5% on time from 1,063 flights
- 12 PM: 84.9% on time from 544 flights
- 1 PM: 78.6% on time from 660 flights
- 2 PM: 78.3% on time from 256 flights
- 3 PM: 54.7% on time from 132 flights
- 4 PM: 74.8% on time from 679 flights
- 5 PM: 68.1% on time from 591 flights
- 6 PM: 73.1% on time from 1,242 flights
- 7 PM: 66.6% on time from 704 flights
- 8 PM: 68.2% on time from 707 flights
- 9 PM: 68.9% on time from 816 flights
- 10 PM: 63.5% on time from 291 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why ATL → PHX runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for ATL → PHX. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of ATL to PHX: 3.3 times the normal rate at ATL and 3.9 times at PHX. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: ATL 3.4% against 1.0%, PHX 2.5% against 0.6%. Flights that did leave PHX in bad weather arrived on time 53.7% of the time, against 80.6% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | ATL | PHX |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 3.4% | 2.5% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.0% | 0.6% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 66.5% | 53.7% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 80.2% | 80.6% |
| Departures in bad weather | 105,854 | 6,215 |
Of the carriers on this route, Southwest Airlines (2.1% cancelled against 3.1% for the other carriers at ATL) cancelled the fewest departures from ATL in bad weather and Frontier Airlines (5.0% cancelled against 3.8% for the other carriers at ATL) the most.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at ATL
All departures from ATL| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 8,953 | 2.1%below the others | 3.1% |
| American Airlines | 2,658 | 2.4%below the others | 3.4% |
| Delta Air Lines | 73,919 | 3.5%about level | 3.6% |
| Frontier Airlines | 4,928 | 5.0%above the others | 3.8% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from ATL and PHX, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from ATL on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: ATL (airlines), PHX, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 6,946 | 77.5% | 0.78% | -1 min | 6.3% |
| American Airlines | 2,036 | 78.9% | 0.49% | -5 min | 8.8% |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,814 | 76.2% | 0.33% | -2 min | 6.7% |
| Frontier Airlines | 611 | 61.6% | 0.82% | 5 min | 12.4% |
Delta Air Lines flew 60.9% of the 11,407 flights listed.
American Airlines arrived on time 17.3 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
AA1777 (8:00 AM) arrived on time 84.0% of the time, 14.6 points more often than DL842 (9:59 PM) at 69.4%.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 7.8 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 75.4%
- Feb: 76.9%
- Mar: 81.2%
- Apr: 78.7%
- May: 69.0%
- Jun: 70.8%
- Jul: 68.2%
- Aug: 78.0%
- Sep: 79.2%
- Oct: 83.9%
- Nov: 80.9%
- Dec: 79.8%
July is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 15.7 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 75.6% from 283 flights
- August 2023: 78.0% from 292 flights
- September 2023: 76.7% from 293 flights
- October 2023: 85.7% from 302 flights
- November 2023: 86.6% from 298 flights
- December 2023: 84.3% from 321 flights
- January 2024: 78.4% from 274 flights
- February 2024: 81.5% from 259 flights
- March 2024: 79.9% from 336 flights
- April 2024: 81.9% from 349 flights
- May 2024: 68.5% from 336 flights
- June 2024: 76.8% from 307 flights
- July 2024: 61.8% from 310 flights
- August 2024: 79.8% from 299 flights
- September 2024: 82.3% from 288 flights
- October 2024: 87.9% from 315 flights
- November 2024: 79.5% from 299 flights
- December 2024: 79.2% from 308 flights
- January 2025: 72.8% from 274 flights
- February 2025: 77.6% from 254 flights
- March 2025: 79.2% from 365 flights
- April 2025: 76.4% from 350 flights
- May 2025: 71.6% from 332 flights
- June 2025: 62.1% from 315 flights
- July 2025: 67.2% from 316 flights
- August 2025: 76.2% from 301 flights
- September 2025: 78.7% from 291 flights
- October 2025: 78.1% from 322 flights
- November 2025: 77.0% from 321 flights
- December 2025: 76.1% from 334 flights
- January 2026: 75.0% from 287 flights
- February 2026: 71.6% from 257 flights
- March 2026: 84.6% from 349 flights
- April 2026: 77.9% from 358 flights
- May 2026: 67.0% from 340 flights
- June 2026: 73.8% from 286 flights
- July 2026: 68.5% from 286 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 75.5% against 76.3% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 11,407 ATL → PHX flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed