Carrier route record
AAPHX→FAT
American Airlines · Phoenix to Fresno
- Flights
- 794
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 54%
- 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 FAT lands a B+, 2 points 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 794 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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.
Key figures
On time
78.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 788 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.76%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.9%
Every carrier on PHX to FAT, 1,476 flights
These figures cover 794 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on PHX to FAT
American flew 794 of the 1,476 flights on PHX to FAT, most of the route. Its 78.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 87.8% to SkyWest at 76.3%. 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 | 147 | 87.8% | 56 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 794 | 78.9% | 80 min | 0.76% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 535 | 76.3% | 77 min | 0.19% | 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 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.
- 5am–8am52 flights94.2%
- 8am–11am335 flights83.2%
- 11am–2pm126 flights84.0%
- 2pm–5pm49 flights79.2%
- 5pm–8pm16 flights—
- 8pm–5am216 flights67.1%
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 67.1% for the overnight window. That is 27 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 335 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHX to FAT through the year
August is the worst month at 64.1% on time, 27 points below February, the best at 90.8%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 87 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.8%, a spread of 12 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on PHX to FAT runs when it is late
The 166 late arrivals split 58 under half an hour, 48 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 60 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early160 flights20.3%
- Within 15 min462 flights58.6%
- 15–29 min late58 flights7.4%
- 30–59 min late48 flights6.1%
- 1–2 hours late28 flights3.6%
- 2+ hours late32 flights4.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 788 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
32 of 171 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. 27 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on PHX to FAT
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 December 2025, 13 hours 5 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in December 2025.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 8 December 2025 | 13 hours 5 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 June 2026 | 9 hours 40 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 December 2025 | 9 hours 13 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 December 2025 | 9 hours 3 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 June 2026 | 7 hours 26 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 51 to one. The split is drawn from 13,190 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,893 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.76%, below the national 1.89% 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
7.6% 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 a little over an hour, 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 78.3% on time across 794 flights, within half a point 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. 794 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. 794 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 78.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 788 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to FAT, every carrier
- American on FAT to PHX, the return leg
- Envoy Air on PHX to FAT87.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to FAT76.3%
- 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.