Carrier route record
AAPHX→AUS
American Airlines · Phoenix to Austin
- Flights
- 1,200
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 36%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHX to AUS sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,200 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHX to AUS from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,186 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.08%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.3%
Every carrier on PHX to AUS, 3,365 flights
These figures cover 1,200 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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 PHX to AUS
American flew 1,200 of the 3,365 flights on PHX to AUS, about 36% of it. Its 74.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 92.3% to American at 74.6%. Two 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 | 26 | 92.3% | 20 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 162 | 84.5% | 75 min | 0.62% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,977 | 74.8% | 48 min | 0.61% | C+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,200 | 74.6% | 65 min | 1.08% | C |
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 16 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–8am—
- 8am–11am334 flights76.8%
- 11am–2pm198 flights80.2%
- 2pm–5pm345 flights71.1%
- 5pm–8pm247 flights75.2%
- 8pm–5am76 flights64.5%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.5% on time, against 80.2% for the 11am–2pm 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 345 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHX to AUS through the year
January is the weak month at 66.7% on time, against 86.9% 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 122 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.6%. 13 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 53% of the 20,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% 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 53 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 19,504 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.08% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.9% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 872 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 81.4% on time across 1,199 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 1,200 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 PHX to AUS
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 86.9% on time and January 66.7%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of January before you think about anything else. 1,186 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to AUS, every carrier
- American on AUS to PHX, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on PHX to AUS84.5%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to AUS74.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.