Carrier route record

AAPHX→BFL

American Airlines · Phoenix to Bakersfield

Flights: 350
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 27%
Carriers: 3

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

American on PHX to BFL 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 350 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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.

On time

80.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 345 completed flights

Avg delay

81 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.14%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

80.1%

Every carrier on PHX to BFL, 1,288 flights

These figures cover 350 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 PHX to BFL

American flew 350 of the 1,288 flights on PHX to BFL, about 27% of it. Its 80.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 80.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 80.9% to Envoy at 79.3%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on PHX to BFL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines (this page)thin sample	350	80.9%	81 min	1.14%	B
SkyWest Airlines	822	79.8%	87 min	2.31%	B
Envoy Airthin sample	116	79.3%	48 min	0.00%	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 350 flights.

5am–8am24 flights—
8am–11am116 flights80.9%
11am–2pm120 flights78.0%
2pm–5pm40 flights82.1%
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am50 flights79.6%

Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 2pm–5pm window is the strongest at 82.1% on time. The full set of windows spans 4 points.

Across the year

American on PHX to BFL through the year

Jul–Sep 2025110 flights86.9%
Oct–Dec 2025123 flights78.0%
Jan–Mar 202637 flights58.3%
Apr–Jun 202680 flights87.3%

Scale runs 50% to 95%. 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 80.9% on time across 350 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 88 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 91.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 69.6%. 22 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 51% of the 5,323 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
51%
Carrier
41%
National Airspace System
7%
Extreme weather
1%

51% 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 5,323 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 36 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 5,323 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, 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 2,187 of the 5,323 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.14% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.29%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.5% 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 a little over an hour, 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 runs 82.7% on time across 350 flights, within 2 points 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. 350 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. 350 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 80.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 345 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