Carrier performance at one airport

AA→PHX

American Airlines at Phoenix Sky Harbor International

Departures: 56,384
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Routes: 25
Rank here: #7 of 9

American Airlines at Phoenix lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 56,384 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 10,668 at 86.9% on time.

Measured against the airport rather than the country, American Airlines runs half a point ahead of the 78.8% weighted average across all carriers at PHX. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.

On time

79.2%

55,572 completed departures

Avg delay

71 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

1.15%

At PHX, this carrier only

Rank here

Of 9 carriers clearing the floor at PHX

These figures cover 56,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.

Against the competition

Every carrier at PHX, ranked

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 86.9% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 70.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,109 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance of all carriers departing PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	10,668	86.9%	86 min	1.03%	A
Alaska Airlines	5,599	85.4%	56 min	0.70%	A+
Envoy Air	10,353	85.2%	49 min	0.67%	A+
United Airlines	10,125	81.3%	76 min	0.76%	B+
SkyWest Airlines	27,209	81.0%	78 min	0.81%	B+
Frontier Airlines	7,587	79.5%	84 min	1.17%	B
American Airlines (this page)	56,384	79.2%	71 min	1.15%	B
Southwest Airlines	67,535	74.4%	49 min	0.62%	C+
JetBlue Airways	1,109	70.8%	72 min	2.52%	C

The spread between Delta and JetBlue is 16 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 16 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

Route by route

Where American Airlines flies from PHX

American Airlines operates 25 routes out of PHX with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.

American Airlines routes from PHX
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
PHX to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	4,577	80.0%	78 min	2.75%	B
PHX to ORD · Chicago	2,994	78.7%	75 min	2.24%	B
PHX to CLT · Charlotte	2,883	88.3%	77 min	1.18%	A
PHX to PHL · Philadelphia	2,320	86.0%	74 min	1.68%	A
PHX to LAX · Los Angeles	2,026	81.7%	63 min	0.54%	B+
PHX to SNA · Santa Ana	1,894	78.9%	66 min	0.37%	B+
PHX to MIA · Miami	1,832	80.5%	62 min	0.82%	B+
PHX to LAS · Las Vegas	1,687	79.1%	67 min	0.83%	B+
PHX to SAN · San Diego	1,670	74.5%	64 min	0.72%	C+
PHX to JFK · New York	1,522	77.3%	74 min	2.10%	B
PHX to SFO · San Francisco	1,319	66.9%	76 min	0.91%	C+
PHX to ONT · Ontario	1,315	80.4%	67 min	0.91%	B+
PHX to BOS · Boston	1,314	78.5%	70 min	1.60%	B
PHX to AUS · Austin	1,200	74.6%	65 min	1.08%	C
PHX to RNO · Reno	1,186	82.4%	70 min	0.76%	B+
PHX to DCA · Washington	1,088	83.9%	66 min	1.47%	B
PHX to SMF · Sacramento	1,079	82.4%	64 min	0.46%	B+
PHX to SAT · San Antonio	1,019	79.2%	77 min	0.79%	B+
PHX to EWR · Newark	995	76.7%	67 min	2.11%	B
PHX to DEN · Denver	974	74.8%	66 min	0.62%	C+
PHX to PDX · Portland	871	75.9%	64 min	0.46%	B+
PHX to FAT · Fresno	802	80.0%	87 min	0.87%	B+
PHX to MCO · Orlando	792	73.7%	56 min	0.63%	C+
PHX to TPA · Tampa	733	76.3%	62 min	0.68%	B+
PHX to PSP · Palm Springs	680	78.5%	71 min	0.74%	B+

Departure window

Best time of day for this operation

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 20 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am4,749 flights92.1%
8am–11am15,658 flights82.9%
11am–2pm9,624 flights78.8%
2pm–5pm10,723 flights73.3%
5pm–8pm6,903 flights72.1%
8pm–5am8,727 flights78.5%

Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.1% of the time, against 72.1% for the evening window. That is 20 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 15,658 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Seasonal pattern

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

July is the worst month at 72.1% on time, 13 points below February, the best at 84.9%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 5,301 flights.

Delay causes

What holds this operation up

Late-arriving aircraft
48%
Carrier
35%
National Airspace System
15%
Extreme weather
2%
Security
0%

48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 820,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 28 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 819,720 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.15% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.29%.

7.4% 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 are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

56,384 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 84.9% on time and July 72.1%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 55,572 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

American Airlines at PHX

How often is American Airlines at PHX delayed?

About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.8% of the 56,384 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on American Airlines at PHX?

Delta Air Lines leads at 86.9% on time across 10,668 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 70.8%, a gap of 16 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 American Airlines at PHX?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.1%, 20 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 July delays on American Airlines at PHX?

July is the weakest month at 72.1% on time, compared with 84.9% in February. Across the year that is 13 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures