Carrier route record
AAAUS→PHX
American Airlines · Austin to Phoenix
- Flights
- 1,199
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 35%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on AUS to PHX lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 2.3 hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,199 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on AUS to PHX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,184 completed flights
Avg delay
139 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.00%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.8%
Every carrier on AUS to PHX, 3,383 flights
These figures cover 1,199 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on AUS to PHX
American flew 1,199 of the 3,383 flights on AUS to PHX, about 35% of it. Its 81.4% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 88.9% to Southwest at 77.2%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 27 | 88.9% | 72 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,199 | 81.4% | 139 min | 1.00% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 162 | 77.4% | 108 min | 1.85% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,995 | 77.2% | 53 min | 0.55% | B+ |
Departure window
When American 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–8am346 flights89.1%
- 8am–11am14 flights—
- 11am–2pm358 flights78.5%
- 2pm–5pm332 flights80.8%
- 5pm–8pm146 flights72.6%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
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 89.1% of the time, against 72.6% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 358 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on AUS to PHX through the year
January is the weak month at 73.1% on time, against 92.3% in August. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 122 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.0%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 55% of the 31,000 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.
- 55%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%Extreme weather
- 5%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 55%, 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 17,000 of the 31,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 30,679 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 89.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.00% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.25%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 872 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.6% on time across 1,200 flights, 7 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,199 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 American on AUS to PHX
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. August runs 92.3% on time and January 73.1%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of January before you think about anything else. 1,184 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- AUS to PHX, every carrier
- American on PHX to AUS, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on AUS to PHX77.4%
- Southwest Airlines on AUS to PHX77.2%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.