Carrier route record
AAMSP→PHX
American Airlines · Minneapolis to Phoenix
- Flights
- 647
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 21%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on MSP 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 647 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on MSP 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
79.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 637 completed flights
Avg delay
96 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.39%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.9%
Every carrier on MSP to PHX, 3,081 flights
These figures cover 647 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 MSP to PHX
American flew 647 of the 3,081 flights on MSP to PHX, about 21% of it. Its 79.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to Delta at 78.8%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 50.00% | A− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 284 | 88.3% | 52 min | 0.35% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 74 | 84.9% | 147 min | 1.35% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 647 | 79.1% | 96 min | 1.39% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,074 | 78.8% | 64 min | 0.68% | B+ |
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 647 flights.
- 5am–8am287 flights80.5%
- 8am–11am33 flights80.6%
- 11am–2pm22 flights—
- 2pm–5pm302 flights77.6%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 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 80.6% on time. The full set of windows spans 3 points.
Across the year
American on MSP to PHX through the year
December is the weak month at 61.5% on time, against 89.6% 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, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 76.3%. 7 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 61% 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.
- 61%Carrier
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 61%, 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 7,815 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 12,726 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.39% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.1% 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.
The 1,276 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 79.8% on time across 647 flights, within half a point 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. 647 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 MSP to PHX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 647 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 79.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 637 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to PHX, every carrier
- American on PHX to MSP, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on MSP to PHX88.3%
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to PHX78.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
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.