Carrier route record

AACLE→PHX

American Airlines · Cleveland to Phoenix

Flights: 318
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 31%
Carriers: 3

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

American on CLE to PHX lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 318 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, American's CLE to PHX record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 52 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 315 completed flights

Avg delay

60 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.31%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

76.2%

Every carrier on CLE to PHX, 1,011 flights

These figures cover 318 flights between September 2025 and August 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.

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Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on CLE to PHX

American flew 318 of the 1,011 flights on CLE to PHX, about 31% of it. Its 82.5% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 82.5% to Southwest at 69.7%. 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 CLE to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines (this page)thin sample	318	82.5%	60 min	0.31%	B+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	327	77.5%	88 min	2.14%	B
Southwest Airlines	366	69.7%	43 min	0.00%	C+

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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 318 flights.

5am–8am285 flights82.3%
8am–11am31 flights90.0%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am2 flights—

Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 90.0% on time for the 8am–11am window against 82.3% for 5am–8am. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 285 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on CLE to PHX through the year

Oct–Dec 202589 flights80.7%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights76.1%
Apr–Jun 202688 flights88.6%
Jul–Sep 202651 flights86.3%

Scale runs 70% to 95%.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 82.5% on time across 318 flights.

American on CLE to PHX did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 88.6% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 76.1%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 80 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, Monday is the strongest day at 91.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 73.8%, a spread of 18 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late American on CLE to PHX runs when it is late

American on CLE to PHX often beats the schedule: 104 of 315 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 33 of the 55 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 15 reached an hour or more.

15+ min early104 flights33.0%
Within 15 min156 flights49.5%
15–29 min late33 flights10.5%
30–59 min late7 flights2.2%
1–2 hours late9 flights2.9%
2+ hours late6 flights1.9%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 315 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

9 of 36 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 25% of them. In the other direction, 28 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at PHX.

The worst days

Worst days for American on CLE to PHX

The latest arrival of the period was on 23 April 2026, 7 hours behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in January 2026.

The latest arrivals of American on CLE to PHX in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
23 April 2026	7 hours	Carrier
29 January 2026	6 hours 47 minutes	Carrier
28 January 2026	5 hours 38 minutes	Carrier
15 January 2026	3 hours 30 minutes	Extreme weather
23 June 2026	2 hours 16 minutes	Carrier

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

Carrier accounts for 69% of the 3,307 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Carrier
69%
National Airspace System
23%
Extreme weather
5%
Late-arriving aircraft
2%
Security
1%

The largest share of delay minutes, 69%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,271 of the 3,307 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,307 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.31%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

At 1,737 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.3% on time across 318 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 318 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 CLE to PHX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 318 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 82.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 315 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures