Carrier route record

AAPHX→LAX

American Airlines · Phoenix to Los Angeles

Flights: 2,026
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 27%
Carriers: 7

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

American on PHX to LAX lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,026 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 2,590 at 90.2% on time.

SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 90.2% on time across 2,590 flights.

On time

81.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,013 completed flights

Avg delay

63 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.54%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

82.8%

Every carrier on PHX to LAX, 7,598 flights

These figures cover 2,026 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 LAX

American flew 2,026 of the 7,598 flights on PHX to LAX, about 27% of it. Its 81.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 82.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number six of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to Southwest at 72.6%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 90.2% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 72.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,007 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on PHX to LAX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	5	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
Delta Air Linesthin sample	142	95.0%	185 min	0.70%	A+
SkyWest Airlines	2,590	90.2%	67 min	0.73%	A+
United Airlinesthin sample	339	87.8%	104 min	0.59%	A+
Frontier Airlines	489	83.1%	86 min	1.02%	B
American Airlines (this page)	2,026	81.7%	63 min	0.54%	B+
Southwest Airlines	2,007	72.6%	49 min	0.55%	C+

The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 18 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 18 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

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 18 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am525 flights92.7%
8am–11am384 flights83.7%
11am–2pm191 flights84.0%
2pm–5pm298 flights80.5%
5pm–8pm360 flights71.1%
8pm–5am268 flights70.7%

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 92.7% of the time, against 70.7% for the overnight window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 525 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on PHX to LAX through the year

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

July is the worst month at 73.5% on time, 18 points below March, the best at 91.2%. 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 199 flights.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 84.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.6%. 9 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 58% of the 23,000 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
58%
Carrier
30%
National Airspace System
11%
Extreme weather
1%
Security
0%

58% 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 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 58 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 23,304 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 92.7% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.54%, 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

5.9% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 370 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 79.1% on time across 2,026 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.

The sample behind these figures is 2,026 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 LAX

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 91.2% on time and July 73.5%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,013 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