Carrier route record
AADTW→PHX
American Airlines · Detroit to Phoenix
- Flights
- 628
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 26%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DTW 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 close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 628 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on DTW 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
79.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 620 completed flights
Avg delay
105 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.80%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.6%
Every carrier on DTW to PHX, 2,425 flights
These figures cover 628 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 DTW to PHX
American flew 628 of the 2,425 flights on DTW to PHX, about 26% of it. Its 79.7% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 85.8% to Delta at 74.7%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 124 | 85.8% | 71 min | 1.61% | A |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 30 | 80.0% | 34 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 628 | 79.7% | 105 min | 0.80% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 310 | 75.1% | 112 min | 1.29% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,333 | 74.7% | 64 min | 0.53% | 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 628 flights.
- 5am–8am296 flights78.7%
- 8am–11am70 flights81.4%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm8 flights—
- 5pm–8pm251 flights80.2%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
Scale runs 70% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8am–11am window is the strongest at 81.4% on time. The full set of windows spans 3 points.
Across the year
American on DTW to PHX through the year
December is the weak month at 64.0% on time, against 92.7% in September. 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 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.8%. 25 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 52% of the 13,000 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.
- 52%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
34% 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 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 34 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 13,279 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, 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 6,894 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.80%, 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
7.3% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,671 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 76.2% on time across 628 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 628 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 DTW to PHX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 628 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 79.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 620 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to PHX, every carrier
- American on PHX to DTW, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to PHX85.8%
- Frontier Airlines on DTW to PHX75.1%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to PHX74.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.