Carrier route record

AAPHX→FAT

American Airlines · Phoenix to Fresno

Flights: 802
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 55%
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 FAT 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 an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 802 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 FAT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

80.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 795 completed flights

Avg delay

87 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.87%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

79.3%

Every carrier on PHX to FAT, 1,452 flights

These figures cover 802 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 FAT

American flew 802 of the 1,452 flights on PHX to FAT, most of the route. Its 80.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 91.4% to SkyWest at 75.8%. 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 FAT
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	105	91.4%	31 min	0.00%	A+
American Airlines (this page)	802	80.0%	87 min	0.87%	B+
SkyWest Airlines	545	75.8%	78 min	0.18%	B+

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 24 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–8am52 flights94.2%
8am–11am336 flights84.5%
11am–2pm126 flights84.0%
2pm–5pm84 flights70.7%
5pm–8pm25 flights—
8pm–5am179 flights71.6%

Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.2% of the time, against 70.7% for the afternoon window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 336 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on PHX to FAT through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, October worst

Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 71.2%. February is the strongest month at 90.8%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 20 points. March was the busiest month here, with 87 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 75.4%. 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 14,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
55%
Carrier
38%
National Airspace System
7%

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 14,000 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 13,828 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 5,293 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.87%, 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

7.3% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 493 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg runs 78.4% on time across 802 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. 802 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 FAT

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 802 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 80.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 795 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