Carrier route record
AAPHX→BFL
American Airlines · Phoenix to Bakersfield
- Flights
- 354
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 27%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHX to BFL lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. 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 rests on 354 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate American on PHX to BFL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 350 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.13%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.3%
Every carrier on PHX to BFL, 1,329 flights
These figures cover 354 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on PHX to BFL
American flew 354 of the 1,329 flights on PHX to BFL, about 27% of it. Its 78.3% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 91.1% to American at 78.3%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 45 | 91.1% | 40 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 930 | 80.6% | 85 min | 2.04% | B |
| American Airlines (this page)thin sample | 354 | 78.3% | 86 min | 1.13% | B |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 354 flights.
- 5am–8am25 flights—
- 8am–11am58 flights72.4%
- 11am–2pm120 flights78.0%
- 2pm–5pm40 flights82.1%
- 5pm–8pm23 flights—
- 8pm–5am88 flights72.4%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 82.1% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 72.4%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 120 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHX to BFL through the year
- Jul–Sep 202550 flights83.3%
- Oct–Dec 2025123 flights78.0%
- Jan–Mar 202637 flights58.3%
- Apr–Jun 202680 flights87.3%
- Jul–Sep 202664 flights75.0%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 78.3% on time across 354 flights.
American on PHX to BFL did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 87.3% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 58.3%, a swing of 29 points on roughly 71 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, Thursday is the strongest day at 90.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 67.9%, a spread of 23 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on PHX to BFL runs when it is late
The 76 late arrivals split 27 under half an hour, 21 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 28 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early75 flights21.4%
- Within 15 min199 flights56.9%
- 15–29 min late27 flights7.7%
- 30–59 min late21 flights6.0%
- 1–2 hours late19 flights5.4%
- 2+ hours late9 flights2.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 350 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
13 of 81 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. 8 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on PHX to BFL
The latest arrival of the period was on 19 September 2025, 12 hours 34 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 19 September 2025 | 12 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 July 2026 | 10 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 July 2026 | 8 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 October 2025 | 8 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 November 2025 | 5 hours 50 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 52% of the 6,530 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Carrier
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,530 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. The split is drawn from 6,530 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,368 of the 6,530 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.13% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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.
At 425 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 2pm–5pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.4% on time across 354 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 354 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 PHX to BFL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 354 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 78.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 350 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to BFL, every carrier
- American on BFL to PHX, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to BFL80.6%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.