Carrier route record
AAPHX→IAH
American Airlines · Phoenix to Houston
- Flights
- 622
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 21%
- 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 IAH sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 622 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHX to IAH from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 612 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.45%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.3%
Every carrier on PHX to IAH, 2,927 flights
These figures cover 622 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 IAH
American flew 622 of the 2,927 flights on PHX to IAH, about 21% of it. Its 75.3% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 84.6% to SkyWest at 72.6%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,780 | 84.6% | 84 min | 0.56% | B+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 68 | 81.8% | 29 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 277 | 78.5% | 62 min | 1.08% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 622 | 75.3% | 68 min | 1.45% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 180 | 72.6% | 81 min | 2.78% | 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 22 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–11am233 flights84.3%
- 11am–2pm73 flights80.8%
- 2pm–5pm75 flights67.1%
- 5pm–8pm177 flights62.3%
- 8pm–5am64 flights82.0%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.3% on time, against 84.3% for the 8am–11am 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 233 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHX to IAH through the year
July is the worst month at 50.0% on time, 36 points below January, the best at 86.2%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 74 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.2%. 21 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. Carrier accounts for 44% of the 10,000 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.
- 44%Carrier
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
42% 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 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 42 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 10,332 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, 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 4,547 of the 10,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.45% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
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.
The 1,009 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.6% on time across 622 flights, 6 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 622 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 IAH
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 622 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 75.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 612 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to IAH, every carrier
- American on IAH to PHX, the return leg
- United Airlines on PHX to IAH84.6%
- Frontier Airlines on PHX to IAH78.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to IAH72.6%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.