Carrier route record

AACLE→PHX

American Airlines · Cleveland to Phoenix

Flights: 267
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 28%
Carriers: 3

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

American on CLE to PHX lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 267 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, American's CLE to PHX record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 42 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

81.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 264 completed flights

Avg delay

63 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.37%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.9%

Every carrier on CLE to PHX, 956 flights

These figures cover 267 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.

Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on CLE to PHX

American flew 267 of the 956 flights on CLE to PHX, about 28% of it. Its 81.8% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 81.8% to Southwest at 74.1%. 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 CLE to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines (this page)thin sample	267	81.8%	63 min	0.37%	B+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	318	79.0%	72 min	2.20%	B
Southwest Airlines	371	74.1%	46 min	0.00%	C+

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 267 flights.

There are not enough flights in each departure window to split American's CLE to PHX record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 81.8% is the reliable figure here.

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%

Scale runs 70% 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 81.8% on time across 267 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 89 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 89.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 75.7%. 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. Carrier accounts for 67% of the 3,004 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
67%
National Airspace System
25%
Extreme weather
6%
Late-arriving aircraft
2%

The largest share of delay minutes, 67%, 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 2,018 of the 3,004 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,004 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.37%, below the national 1.81% 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 4.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 runs 79.3% on time across 267 flights, within 3 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. 267 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. 267 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 81.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 264 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