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DelayAtlas

Carrier route record

AAMCOPHX

American Airlines · Orlando to Phoenix

Flights
796
Period
July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route
43%
Carriers
3
B+GRADE

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

American on MCO to PHX sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 796 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on MCO 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

75.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 785 completed flights

Avg delay

104 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.63%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.6%

Every carrier on MCO to PHX, 1,842 flights

These figures cover 796 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% 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 MCO to PHX

American flew 796 of the 1,842 flights on MCO to PHX, about 43% of it. Its 75.9% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 81.8% to American at 75.9%. 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 MCO to PHX
AirlineFlightsOn timeAvg delayCancelledGrade
Frontier Airlinesthin sample19481.8%51 min1.03%B
Southwest Airlines85278.2%51 min0.23%B+
American Airlines (this page)79675.9%104 min0.63%B+

Flight by flight

American flight numbers on MCO to PHX

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 half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

  • 5am–8am311 flights86.6%
  • 8am–11am
  • 11am–2pm200 flights80.3%
  • 2pm–5pm33 flights77.4%
  • 5pm–8pm251 flights59.6%
  • 8pm–5am1 flights

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.6% on time, against 86.6% for the 5am–8am 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 311 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on MCO to PHX through the year

On-time rate by calendar month78J81F84M74A80M72J57J49AS76O86N78D
Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.November best, August worst

August is the worst month at 48.6% on time, 38 points below November, the best at 86.3%. 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 91 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.6%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

On-time rate by day of the week71.8Mon83.0Tue78.8Wed78.2Thu80.0Fri76.8Sat65.6Sun
Monday: 71.8 percent on time. Tuesday: 83.0 percent on time. Wednesday: 78.8 percent on time. Thursday: 78.2 percent on time. Friday: 80.0 percent on time. Saturday: 76.8 percent on time. Sunday: 65.6 percent on time

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 20,000 reported delay minutes.

  • Late-arriving aircraft
    39%
  • Carrier
    30%
  • Extreme weather
    20%
  • National Airspace System
    11%
  • Security
    0%

Extreme weather accounts for 20% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 19,687 reported delay minutes.

39% 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 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 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.

Cancellations are rare at 0.63%, 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

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

At 1,849 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 73.7% on time across 792 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. 796 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 MCO to PHX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 796 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 75.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 785 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Related

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.