Carrier route record

AAPHX→CLE

American Airlines · Phoenix to Cleveland

Flights: 267
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 28%
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 CLE lands a B+, 2 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 267 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 PHX to CLE from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

79.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 266 completed flights

Avg delay

77 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.37%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

72.7%

Every carrier on PHX to CLE, 957 flights

These figures cover 267 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% 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 CLE

American flew 267 of the 957 flights on PHX to CLE, about 28% of it. Its 79.3% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 79.3% to Southwest at 67.8%. 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 CLE
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines (this page)thin sample	267	79.3%	77 min	0.37%	B+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	319	72.7%	83 min	1.88%	C
Southwest Airlines	371	67.8%	44 min	0.00%	C+

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 267 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am—
11am–2pm3 flights—
2pm–5pm220 flights80.8%
5pm–8pm41 flights75.6%
8pm–5am3 flights—

Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 80.8% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 75.6%. 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 220 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on PHX to CLE through the year

Oct–Dec 202589 flights80.9%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights77.5%
Apr–Jun 202688 flights79.5%

Scale runs 70% to 85%. 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 79.3% on time across 267 flights.

Quarter by quarter American on PHX to CLE held fairly steady: 80.9% in Oct–Dec 2025, 77.5% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 79.5% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 3 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.5% on time and Saturday the weakest at 74.4%. 12 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 55% of the 4,219 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
55%
Carrier
40%
National Airspace System
6%

55% 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 4,219 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 55 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 4,219 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, 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 1,668 of the 4,219 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.37%, 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

8.3% 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 1,737 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

The return leg runs 81.8% on time across 267 flights, within 3 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. 267 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 CLE

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 267 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 79.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 266 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