Carrier route record
AAORD→PHX
American Airlines · Chicago to Phoenix
- Flights
- 2,993
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 54%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on ORD to PHX sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 2,993 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,938 at 79.1% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on ORD to PHX runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 62 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,913 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.34%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.9%
Every carrier on ORD to PHX, 5,594 flights
These figures cover 2,993 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.1% 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 ORD to PHX
American flew 2,993 of the 5,594 flights on ORD to PHX, most of the route. Its 71.4% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 79.1% to Southwest at 58.3%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 79.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 58.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 460 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,938 | 79.1% | 66 min | 0.41% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,993 | 71.4% | 84 min | 2.34% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 203 | 67.5% | 82 min | 3.94% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 460 | 58.3% | 67 min | 2.17% | D |
The spread between United and Southwest is 21 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 21 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 26 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am622 flights84.7%
- 8am–11am361 flights75.7%
- 11am–2pm512 flights76.9%
- 2pm–5pm446 flights61.0%
- 5pm–8pm577 flights68.1%
- 8pm–5am475 flights58.3%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.3% on time, against 84.7% 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 622 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on ORD to PHX through the year
June is the worst month at 55.9% on time, 25 points below November, the best at 80.8%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 278 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 76.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.1%. 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 48% of the 70,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% 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 70,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 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 70,006 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 25,000 of the 70,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.34% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.33%.
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. 11.1% 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 1,440 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 78.7% on time across 2,994 flights, 7 points above 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,993 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 ORD to PHX
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 80.8% on time and June 55.9%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,913 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to PHX, every carrier
- American on PHX to ORD, the return leg
- United Airlines on ORD to PHX79.1%
- Frontier Airlines on ORD to PHX67.5%
- Southwest Airlines on ORD to PHX58.3%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) 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.