Carrier route record

AAOMA→PHX

American Airlines · Omaha to Phoenix

Flights: 266
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 13%
Carriers: 5

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

American on OMA to PHX lands a B+, 3 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 close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 266 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 OMA to PHX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

80.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 265 completed flights

Avg delay

107 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.38%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

81.8%

Every carrier on OMA to PHX, 2,007 flights

These figures cover 266 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% 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 OMA to PHX

American flew 266 of the 2,007 flights on OMA to PHX, about 13% of it. Its 80.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 81.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 100.0% to Southwest at 79.8%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on OMA to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	3	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
Envoy Airthin sample	271	90.0%	127 min	0.37%	A+
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	252	83.9%	97 min	1.19%	B
American Airlines (this page)thin sample	266	80.4%	107 min	0.38%	B+
Southwest Airlines	1,215	79.8%	53 min	0.58%	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 23 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–8am148 flights86.4%
8am–11am2 flights—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm48 flights85.4%
5pm–8pm68 flights63.2%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.2% on time, against 86.4% 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 148 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on OMA to PHX through the year

Jul–Sep 202572 flights71.8%
Oct–Dec 202524 flights—
Jan–Mar 202690 flights86.7%
Apr–Jun 202680 flights77.5%

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 80.4% on time across 266 flights.

American on OMA to PHX did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 86.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 71.8%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 89 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 72.2%. 15 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 52% of the 5,537 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.

Carrier
52%
Late-arriving aircraft
37%
National Airspace System
7%
Extreme weather
4%

37% 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 5,537 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 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 5,537 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, 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 2,893 of the 5,537 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.38%, 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. 9.1% 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.

The 1,037 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.8% on time across 265 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. 266 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 OMA to PHX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 266 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 80.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 265 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