Carrier route record

AAPHX→DSM

American Airlines · Phoenix to Des Moines

Flights: 494
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 46%
Carriers: 5

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

American on PHX to DSM lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 494 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHX to DSM from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

77.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 484 completed flights

Avg delay

55 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.82%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.5%

Every carrier on PHX to DSM, 1,067 flights

These figures cover 494 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 DSM

American flew 494 of the 1,067 flights on PHX to DSM, about 46% of it. Its 77.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 80.3% to Frontier at 71.4%. Four 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 DSM
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	352	80.3%	48 min	1.42%	B
Envoy Airthin sample	48	79.2%	46 min	0.00%	B+
American Airlines (this page)	494	77.3%	55 min	1.82%	B
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	166	72.0%	43 min	0.60%	C+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	7	71.4%	33 min	0.00%	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 27 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–11am213 flights80.6%
11am–2pm88 flights84.9%
2pm–5pm68 flights83.1%
5pm–8pm74 flights58.1%
8pm–5am51 flights70.8%

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.1% on time, against 84.9% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 213 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on PHX to DSM through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, July worst

July is the worst month at 54.8% on time, 40 points below April, the best at 94.5%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 74 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.9%. 16 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 6,003 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
48%
Carrier
38%
National Airspace System
14%
Extreme weather
0%

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 6,003 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 48 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 6,003 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, 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 2,256 of the 6,003 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.82% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.20%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.4% 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 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 1,149 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 runs 80.0% on time across 494 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. 494 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 DSM

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 494 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 77.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 484 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