Carrier route record

AABFL→PHX

American Airlines · Bakersfield to Phoenix

Flights: 350
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 27%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on BFL to PHX lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 350 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, American's BFL to PHX record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 51 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 346 completed flights

Avg delay

95 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.14%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

83.2%

Every carrier on BFL to PHX, 1,289 flights

These figures cover 350 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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.

Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on BFL to PHX

American flew 350 of the 1,289 flights on BFL to PHX, about 27% of it. Its 82.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 83.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 88.8% to SkyWest at 82.6%. One 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.

On-time performance by carrier on BFL to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	117	88.8%	56 min	0.00%	A+
American Airlines (this page)thin sample	350	82.7%	95 min	1.14%	B
SkyWest Airlines	822	82.6%	96 min	2.31%	B

Departure window

When American runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 350 flights.

5am–8am80 flights85.9%
8am–11am24 flights—
11am–2pm235 flights81.1%
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm9 flights—
8pm–5am2 flights—

Scale runs 75% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 85.9% on time for the 5am–8am window against 81.1% for 11am–2pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 235 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on BFL to PHX through the year

Jul–Sep 2025109 flights86.0%
Oct–Dec 2025124 flights79.0%
Jan–Mar 202638 flights70.3%
Apr–Jun 202679 flights89.7%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 82.7% on time across 350 flights.

American on BFL to PHX did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 89.7% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 70.3%, a swing of 19 points on roughly 88 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 89.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 75.0%. 14 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 71% of the 5,674 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
71%
Carrier
22%
National Airspace System
7%
Extreme weather
0%

71% 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 5,674 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 71 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 5,674 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 85.9% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.14% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.5% 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 last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 425 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg runs 80.9% on time across 350 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 350 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking American on BFL to PHX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 350 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 82.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 346 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures