Carrier route record
AAPHX→JFK
American Airlines · Phoenix to New York
- Flights
- 1,522
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 51%
- 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 JFK 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,522 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 917 at 87.0% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHX to JFK from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,483 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.10%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.7%
Every carrier on PHX to JFK, 2,970 flights
These figures cover 1,522 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% 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 JFK
American flew 1,522 of the 2,970 flights on PHX to JFK, most of the route. Its 77.3% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 87.0% to JetBlue at 73.9%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 87.0% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 73.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 531 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 917 | 87.0% | 84 min | 3.27% | A− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,522 | 77.3% | 74 min | 2.10% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 531 | 73.9% | 74 min | 3.39% | C− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.4% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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 26 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am192 flights89.3%
- 8am–11am333 flights78.5%
- 11am–2pm223 flights63.4%
- 2pm–5pm414 flights71.9%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am360 flights84.5%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 63.4% on time against 89.3% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 414 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHX to JFK through the year
July is the worst month at 59.6% on time, 32 points below April, the best at 91.3%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 154 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.0%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 25,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
- 1%Extreme weather
39% 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 25,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 39 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 24,837 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 9,021 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.46%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.0% 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 2,153 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.0% on time across 1,524 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,522 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking American on PHX to JFK
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 91.3% on time and July 59.6%, a swing of 32 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,483 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to JFK, every carrier
- American on JFK to PHX, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on PHX to JFK87.0%
- JetBlue Airways on PHX to JFK73.9%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.