Carrier route record
AAHNL→PHX
American Airlines · Honolulu to Phoenix
- Flights
- 587
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 45%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on HNL to PHX earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 2.1 hours. That rests on 587 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, American's HNL to PHX record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 79 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 579 completed flights
Avg delay
125 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.36%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
85.0%
Every carrier on HNL to PHX, 1,317 flights
These figures cover 587 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 HNL to PHX
American flew 587 of the 1,317 flights on HNL to PHX, about 45% of it. Its 85.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 85.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 93.9% to Hawaiian at 70.5%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 365 | 93.9% | 29 min | 1.64% | A |
| American Airlines (this page) | 587 | 85.5% | 125 min | 1.36% | A |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 181 | 80.7% | 64 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 184 | 70.5% | 41 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on HNL to PHX
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 587 flights.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 85.5% on time across 587 flights. Red-eyes fly into empty airspace and empty gates, and they are the first rotation of the aircraft's day rather than the last. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 587 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on HNL to PHX through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 93.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 92.5% on time and Saturday the weakest at 79.8%. 13 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 43% of the 11,000 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.
- 43%Carrier
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%Extreme weather
- 7%National Airspace System
40% 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 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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 10,536 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, 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 4,580 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.36% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.1% 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 2,917 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 79.6% on time across 587 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 587 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 HNL to PHX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 587 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 85.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 579 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- HNL to PHX, every carrier
- American on PHX to HNL, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on HNL to PHX93.9%
- Alaska Airlines on HNL to PHX80.7%
- Hawaiian Airlines on HNL to PHX70.5%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) 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.