PHX → SFO Flight Reliability

Right now

Origin · PHXNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 06:51 UTC

Phoenix airport profile →

Destination · SFONo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 06:56 UTC

San Francisco airport profile →

Route reliability

July 2023 – July 2026

Route Reliability Score

55/ 100Fair

Better than 24% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)

Calculated from 14,538 flights. How this is calculated

On-time arrivals

70.1%

10,125 of 14,452

Cancellation rate

0.54%

78 cancelled

Median arrival delay

-1 min

Average 13.6 min

Severe delays

10.1%

60+ minutes late

Delay when late

63 min

Average, when 15+ min late

Flights analyzed

14,538

5 carriers

PHX → SFO arrives on time 70.1% of the time; the return trip, SFO → PHX, arrives on time 76.4% of the time, a 6.3-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.

PHX → SFO spends 25.3 minutes on the ground on a 651-mile trip: 17.7 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at PHX and 7.5 minutes from touchdown to gate at SFO.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026

What stands out

Reliability on this route has fallen unusually sharply over the past year, a bigger swing than 96% of 5,368 comparable routes.

65.8% on time over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), against 78.2% in the 12 months before (2024-08 to 2025-07), a change of 12.4 points.

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 5,368 in the comparison.

Why PHX → SFO flights are cancelled

July 2023 – July 2026

PHX → SFO cancelled 78 of 14,538 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 186. The reason filed most often was the airline, 59.0% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 316 scheduled flights.

Share of cancellations

Airline59.0%

Weather23.1%

Air traffic17.9%

Security0.0%

Of 78 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.

What each reason means

The airline1 in 316

Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.

46 cancellations, 59.0% of the total.

Extreme weather1 in 808

Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.

18 cancellations, 23.1% of the total.

The air traffic system1 in 1,038

Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.

14 cancellations, 17.9% of the total.

Security—

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.

78 coded cancellations were recorded on PHX → SFO; the section appears from 50.

When it goes wrong

July 2023 – July 2026

One arrival in ten is worse than

60 min late

against a median of 1 min early

Arrived an hour or more late10.1%

Typical delay when late63 min

Cancelled0.54%

Landed somewhere else0.06%

PHX → SFO has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 1 min early, but the worst tenth are 61 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.

Percentiles over 14,538 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.

Will your connection be tight enough?

Layovers at SFO after arriving from PHX.

Connection buffer and chance of missing by layover length, PHX → SFO arrivals
Connection time	Chance of missing	Reads as
30 min	46%	Likely to miss
45 min	29%	High risk
60 min	19%	High risk
90 min	9.9%	Some risk
120 min	5.4%	Some 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 0.54% of the time and diverts 0.06% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.

Chance of missing is the share of 14,452 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 60 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 14,538 operations.

Any other layover length: connection checker.

Best time to fly

PHX → SFO flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 76.7% of the time, against 60.6% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 16.1 percentage points.

By day and hour

On-time arrival rate for each weekday and scheduled departure hour, in local time at the departure airport (PHX).

Hour of departure and day of the week matter about equally: hourly averages sit a typical 7.0 points from the route-wide rate, weekday averages 4.8 points.

On-time arrival rate for PHX to SFO by weekday and scheduled departure hour, local time. Each button reads out one slot.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
7 AM–8 AM
8 AM–9 AM
9 AM–10 AM
10 AM–11 AM
11 AM–12 PM
12 PM–1 PM
1 PM–2 PM
2 PM–3 PM
3 PM–4 PM
4 PM–5 PM
5 PM–6 PM
6 PM–7 PM
7 PM–8 PM
8 PM–9 PM

On-time rate, % · stronger color, fewer on time

50–59
60–69
70–79
80–89

Fewer than 120 flights, not scored

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · On time is arrival within 15 minutes of schedule. Cells round to whole percentages; the table shows one decimal.

No slot is named best or worst: too few reach 500 flights. Departures before 7 AM and after 9 PM (1,445 flights) are not drawn: no slot in those hours has enough flights to score.

View as tableHide table

On-time arrival rate (%) with flights beneath, by scheduled departure hour and weekday for PHX to SFO. A dash means fewer than 120 flights, which are not scored.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
7 AM–8 AM	65.4% on time231 flights	76.8% on time203 flights	72.1% on time204 flights	66.9% on time239 flights	71.2% on time238 flights	80.6% on time228 flights	65.4% on time234 flights
8 AM–9 AM	70.9% on time206 flights	80.8% on time172 flights	74.1% on time185 flights	67.0% on time216 flights	73.6% on time216 flights	85.2% on time177 flights	75.6% on time174 flights
9 AM–10 AM	60 flights, too few to score	92 flights, too few to score	90 flights, too few to score	57 flights, too few to score	62 flights, too few to score	107 flights, too few to score	77 flights, too few to score
10 AM–11 AM	68.4% on time190 flights	78.9% on time171 flights	77.0% on time183 flights	73.3% on time187 flights	63.9% on time184 flights	78.2% on time147 flights	76.4% on time182 flights
11 AM–12 PM	61.9% on time141 flights	113 flights, too few to score	66.4% on time122 flights	56.7% on time154 flights	63.3% on time139 flights	78.3% on time143 flights	73.2% on time144 flights
12 PM–1 PM	50 flights, too few to score	28 flights, too few to score	33 flights, too few to score	53 flights, too few to score	54 flights, too few to score	47 flights, too few to score	41 flights, too few to score
1 PM–2 PM	60.2% on time125 flights	71.7% on time121 flights	70.8% on time130 flights	118 flights, too few to score	116 flights, too few to score	75.8% on time128 flights	68.9% on time124 flights
2 PM–3 PM	50.8% on time123 flights	119 flights, too few to score	73.6% on time121 flights	119 flights, too few to score	60.7% on time124 flights	73.6% on time131 flights	66.9% on time120 flights
3 PM–4 PM	102 flights, too few to score	99 flights, too few to score	104 flights, too few to score	104 flights, too few to score	102 flights, too few to score	87 flights, too few to score	119 flights, too few to score
4 PM–5 PM	61.5% on time148 flights	73.4% on time124 flights	115 flights, too few to score	65.6% on time157 flights	64.1% on time146 flights	74.0% on time132 flights	64.5% on time152 flights
5 PM–6 PM	67.4% on time181 flights	80.8% on time151 flights	72.3% on time155 flights	65.2% on time159 flights	72.8% on time175 flights	110 flights, too few to score	61.7% on time167 flights
6 PM–7 PM	81 flights, too few to score	74 flights, too few to score	72 flights, too few to score	84 flights, too few to score	87 flights, too few to score	71.4% on time120 flights	86 flights, too few to score
7 PM–8 PM	106 flights, too few to score	103 flights, too few to score	118 flights, too few to score	114 flights, too few to score	55.3% on time124 flights	70.5% on time147 flights	109 flights, too few to score
8 PM–9 PM	64.8% on time179 flights	73.2% on time164 flights	70.5% on time210 flights	59.2% on time185 flights	62.5% on time176 flights	111 flights, too few to score	57.5% on time161 flights

By departure window

5–9 AM76.7%

9 AM–12 PM70.4%

12–3 PM67.8%

3–6 PM71.1%

6–9 PM64.4%

9 PM–5 AM60.6%

By departure hour

12 AM

3 AM

6 AM

9 AM

12 PM

3 PM

6 PM

9 PM

Why PHX → SFO runs late

July 2023 – July 2026

Air traffic control37.2%

airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control

Late-arriving aircraft35.4%

the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late

The airline25.4%

crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control

Weather1.9%

weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically

Security<0.1%

screening or terminal security incidents

Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for PHX → SFO. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.

How this route holds up in bad weather

July 2023 – July 2026

The harder-hit end is the one the flight leaves from, where a cancellation keeps it from departing at all. Bad weather cancels 3.9 times the normal rate at PHX against 1.7 times at SFO. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: PHX 2.5% against 0.6%, SFO 1.5% against 0.9%. 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 PHX and SFO in hours of bad weather and in normal hours
Departures from	PHX	SFO
Cancelled in bad weather	2.5%	1.5%
Cancelled in normal hours	0.6%	0.9%
Arrived on time, bad weather	53.7%	73.0%
Arrived on time, normal hours	80.6%	79.8%
Departures in bad weather	6,215	36,006

These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from PHX and SFO, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad.

Weather source and limits. In full: PHX, SFO, 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.

Airlines on this route
Carrier	Flights	On time	Cancelled	Median delay	Severe
United Airlines	4,176	76.0%	0.55%	-6 min	7.7%
American Airlines	3,982	69.4%	0.43%	-1 min	12.1%
Southwest Airlines	3,331	63.4%	0.24%	4 min	10.6%
SkyWest Airlines	1,643	71.8%	0.24%	0 min	8.2%
Frontier Airlines	1,164	68.3%	0.95%	-4 min	13.4%

United Airlines flew 29.2% of the 14,296 flights listed.

United Airlines arrived on time 12.6 percentage points more often than Southwest Airlines on this route.

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

Mon65.5%

Tue77.3%

Wed71.8%

Thu66.3%

Fri67.5%

Sat77.5%

Sun66.4%

Saturday is historically the most reliable day and Monday the least, a gap of 12.0 percentage points.

By month

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

May is historically the weakest month and September the strongest, a spread of 24.4 percentage points.

Reliability over time

July 2023 – July 2026

24

25

26

Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 65.8% against 78.2% in the 12 months before — declining by 12.4 percentage points.

Data and methodology

Calculated by FlyerIntel from 14,538 PHX → SFO 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

Analysis last recomputed September 26, 2026

PHX airport SFO airport Return direction SFO → PHX

PHX→SFO

Right now

Route reliability

What stands out

Why PHX → SFO flights are cancelled

Share of cancellations

What each reason means

When it goes wrong

Will your connection be tight enough?

Best time to fly

By day and hour

By departure window

By departure hour

Why PHX → SFO runs late

How this route holds up in bad weather

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

Airlines on this route

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

By month

Reliability over time

Data and methodology