Carrier route record
AALAX→PHX
American Airlines · Los Angeles to Phoenix
- Flights
- 2,026
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 27%
- Carriers
- 7
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on LAX 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 an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,026 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 2,590 at 87.2% on time.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 87.2% on time across 2,590 flights.
Key figures
On time
79.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,012 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.49%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
80.9%
Every carrier on LAX to PHX, 7,608 flights
These figures cover 2,026 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% 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 LAX to PHX
American flew 2,026 of the 7,608 flights on LAX to PHX, about 27% of it. Its 79.1% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number five of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 87.2% to Frontier at 74.6%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 87.2% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 74.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 488 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 2,590 | 87.2% | 59 min | 0.73% | A+ |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 339 | 86.6% | 74 min | 0.59% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 6 | 83.3% | 22 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 142 | 83.0% | 77 min | 0.70% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,026 | 79.1% | 91 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,017 | 74.9% | 51 min | 1.09% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 488 | 74.6% | 72 min | 1.43% | C |
The spread between SkyWest and Frontier is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 27 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am329 flights93.6%
- 8am–11am419 flights84.4%
- 11am–2pm363 flights69.7%
- 2pm–5pm361 flights66.6%
- 5pm–8pm354 flights79.1%
- 8pm–5am200 flights83.3%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.6% of the time, against 66.6% for the afternoon window. That is 27 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 419 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on LAX to PHX through the year
July is the worst month at 71.8% on time, 14 points below March, the best at 86.2%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 198 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 74.0%. 11 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 60% of the 38,000 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.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
60% 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 38,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 60 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 38,262 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 93.6% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.49%, 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
8.8% 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 370 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 81.7% on time across 2,026 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.
The sample behind these figures is 2,026 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking American on LAX to PHX
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 86.2% on time and July 71.8%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,012 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to PHX, every carrier
- American on PHX to LAX, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on LAX to PHX87.2%
- United Airlines on LAX to PHX86.6%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to PHX83.0%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to PHX74.9%
- Frontier Airlines on LAX to PHX74.6%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.