Carrier route record
AAPHX→MCI
American Airlines · Phoenix to Kansas City
- Flights
- 597
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 24%
- 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 MCI lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five 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 597 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 MCI from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 587 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.17%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.5%
Every carrier on PHX to MCI, 2,472 flights
These figures cover 597 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 MCI
American flew 597 of the 2,472 flights on PHX to MCI, about 24% of it. Its 78.0% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 90.0% to Southwest at 75.0%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 71 | 90.0% | 91 min | 1.41% | A |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 55 | 81.8% | 46 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 113 | 80.2% | 56 min | 0.88% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 597 | 78.0% | 68 min | 1.17% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,636 | 75.0% | 50 min | 0.55% | 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 18 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–11am302 flights83.6%
- 11am–2pm71 flights74.3%
- 2pm–5pm40 flights84.2%
- 5pm–8pm124 flights66.1%
- 8pm–5am60 flights74.6%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 84.2% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 66.1%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 302 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHX to MCI through the year
July is the worst month at 70.0% on time, 19 points below September, the best at 89.4%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 73 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 74.4%. 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 55% of the 8,826 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
- 1%Extreme weather
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 8,826 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 8,826 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 3,221 of the 8,826 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.17% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.50%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.5% 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 1,044 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 82.7% on time across 597 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 597 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 MCI
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 597 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 78.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 587 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to MCI, every carrier
- American on MCI to PHX, the return leg
- Envoy Air on PHX to MCI80.2%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to MCI75.0%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) 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.