Carrier route record

AABOS→PHX

American Airlines · Boston to Phoenix

Flights: 1,316
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 65%
Carriers: 3

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

American on BOS to PHX lands a B, 2 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,316 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 BOS to PHX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

79.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,293 completed flights

Avg delay

77 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.60%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

76.7%

Every carrier on BOS to PHX, 2,024 flights

These figures cover 1,316 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 BOS to PHX

American flew 1,316 of the 2,024 flights on BOS to PHX, most of the route. Its 79.9% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 79.9% to Delta at 69.1%. 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 BOS to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines (this page)	1,316	79.9%	77 min	1.60%	B
JetBlue Airwaysthin sample	280	73.0%	69 min	2.14%	C
Delta Air Lines	428	69.1%	57 min	1.87%	C

Flight by flight

American flight numbers on BOS to PHX

AA 105712:2578.7% · 362 flights

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 28 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–8am358 flights87.9%
8am–11am351 flights82.3%
11am–2pm362 flights78.7%
2pm–5pm99 flights76.5%
5pm–8pm146 flights60.0%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.0% on time, against 87.9% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 362 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on BOS to PHX through the year

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

July is the worst month at 74.4% on time, 13 points below August, the best at 87.7%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 123 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 77.5%. 5 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 46% of the 20,000 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.

Carrier
46%
Late-arriving aircraft
36%
National Airspace System
15%
Extreme weather
2%

36% 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 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 20,079 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, 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 9,254 of the 20,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.60% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

5.6% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 2,300 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

The return leg runs 78.5% on time across 1,314 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

The sample behind these figures is 1,316 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 BOS to PHX

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. August runs 87.7% on time and July 74.4%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,293 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