Carrier route record

AAFAT→PHX

American Airlines · Fresno to Phoenix

Flights: 802
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 55%
Carriers: 3

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

American on FAT to PHX lands a B+, about a point 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 an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 802 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on FAT to PHX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

78.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 795 completed flights

Avg delay

91 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.87%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

81.0%

Every carrier on FAT to PHX, 1,452 flights

These figures cover 802 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on FAT to PHX

American flew 802 of the 1,452 flights on FAT to PHX, most of the route. Its 78.4% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 91.4% to American at 78.4%. 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 FAT to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	105	91.4%	212 min	0.00%	A+
SkyWest Airlines	545	82.8%	133 min	0.55%	B+
American Airlines (this page)	802	78.4%	91 min	0.87%	B+

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 26 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–8am—
8am–11am173 flights90.1%
11am–2pm350 flights82.5%
2pm–5pm41 flights75.0%
5pm–8pm237 flights64.1%
8pm–5am1 flights—

Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.1% on time, against 90.1% for the 8am–11am 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 350 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on FAT to PHX through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, June worst

June is the worst month at 61.7% on time, 26 points below February, 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. March was the busiest month here, with 87 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 75.6%. 9 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 77% of the 16,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
77%
Carrier
17%
National Airspace System
6%
Extreme weather
1%
Security
0%

77% 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 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 77 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 15,687 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.1% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.87%, 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

8.7% 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 493 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg runs 80.0% on time across 802 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. 802 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 FAT to PHX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 802 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 78.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 795 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