Route profile
PHX→TUS
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Phoenix to Tucson, 110 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 87% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 10,157 flights. How this is calculated
PHX → TUS arrives on time 84.6% of the time; the return trip, TUS → PHX, arrives on time 84.9% of the time.
PHX → TUS spends 23.7 minutes on the ground on a 110-mile trip: 19.2 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at PHX and 4.4 minutes from touchdown to gate at TUS.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
This route holds up about the same all year, a steadier seasonal pattern than 100% of 3,357 comparable routes.
87.0% on time in its best month (September) against 80.5% in its worst (June).
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 3,357 in the comparison.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
30 min late
against a median of 7 min early
Percentiles over 10,157 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at TUS after arriving from PHX.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 29% | High risk |
| 45 min | 15% | Some risk |
| 60 min | 9.8% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 5.3% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 3.1% | 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 0.38% of the time and diverts 0.05% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 10,113 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 30 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 10,157 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
PHX → TUS flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 92.4% of the time, against 78.8% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 13.6 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 6 AM: too few flights to score
- 7 AM: 94.0% on time from 603 flights
- 8 AM: 91.4% on time from 1,019 flights
- 9 AM: 87.2% on time from 423 flights
- 10 AM: 89.3% on time from 795 flights
- 11 AM: 90.9% on time from 374 flights
- 12 PM: 88.1% on time from 639 flights
- 1 PM: 84.8% on time from 1,136 flights
- 2 PM: 82.4% on time from 277 flights
- 3 PM: 80.8% on time from 583 flights
- 4 PM: 82.4% on time from 687 flights
- 5 PM: 80.1% on time from 711 flights
- 6 PM: 82.4% on time from 561 flights
- 7 PM: 78.1% on time from 479 flights
- 8 PM: 79.1% on time from 785 flights
- 9 PM: 77.6% on time from 556 flights
- 10 PM: 78.6% on time from 427 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why PHX → TUS 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 PHX → TUS. 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 barely any change at TUS. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: PHX 2.5% against 0.6%, TUS 0.5% against 0.8%. 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 | TUS |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 2.5% | 0.5% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 0.6% | 0.8% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 53.7% | 67.9% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 80.6% | 84.6% |
| Departures in bad weather | 6,215 | 1,151 |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from PHX and TUS, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad.
Weather source and limits. In full: PHX, TUS, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 6,706 | 84.8% | 0.24% | -7 min | 5.6% |
| Envoy Air | 1,722 | 88.2% | 0.58% | -7 min | 2.8% |
| American Airlines | 1,431 | 82.2% | 0.84% | -7 min | 7.0% |
| Southwest Airlines | 298 | 70.7% | 0.34% | 3 min | 8.1% |
SkyWest Airlines flew 66.0% of the 10,157 flights listed.
Envoy Air arrived on time 17.5 percentage points more often than Southwest Airlines on this route.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 6.2 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 86.9%
- Feb: 86.3%
- Mar: 83.2%
- Apr: 84.9%
- May: 84.1%
- Jun: 80.5%
- Jul: 81.8%
- Aug: 86.3%
- Sep: 87.0%
- Oct: 85.1%
- Nov: 84.9%
- Dec: 86.2%
June is historically the weakest month and September the strongest, a spread of 6.5 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 82.7% from 199 flights
- August 2023: 88.0% from 211 flights
- September 2023: 85.4% from 198 flights
- October 2023: 84.2% from 209 flights
- November 2023: 87.7% from 244 flights
- December 2023: 89.4% from 264 flights
- January 2024: 87.6% from 258 flights
- February 2024: 92.1% from 241 flights
- March 2024: 88.6% from 290 flights
- April 2024: 89.9% from 276 flights
- May 2024: 87.3% from 307 flights
- June 2024: 88.9% from 274 flights
- July 2024: 87.9% from 278 flights
- August 2024: 86.7% from 258 flights
- September 2024: 91.1% from 271 flights
- October 2024: 86.9% from 298 flights
- November 2024: 84.0% from 288 flights
- December 2024: 82.4% from 301 flights
- January 2025: 91.8% from 279 flights
- February 2025: 83.6% from 269 flights
- March 2025: 79.9% from 334 flights
- April 2025: 83.8% from 314 flights
- May 2025: 84.0% from 309 flights
- June 2025: 79.4% from 262 flights
- July 2025: 83.8% from 262 flights
- August 2025: 84.2% from 241 flights
- September 2025: 83.1% from 217 flights
- October 2025: 83.6% from 232 flights
- November 2025: 83.1% from 261 flights
- December 2025: 87.4% from 278 flights
- January 2026: 81.5% from 277 flights
- February 2026: 83.5% from 249 flights
- March 2026: 81.9% from 360 flights
- April 2026: 82.1% from 352 flights
- May 2026: 81.2% from 341 flights
- June 2026: 74.3% from 325 flights
- July 2026: 74.5% from 330 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 81.4% against 84.7% in the 12 months before — declining by 3.3 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 10,157 PHX → TUS 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