Carrier route record

AAPHX→MCO

American Airlines · Phoenix to Orlando

Flights: 792
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 43%
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 MCO sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 792 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on PHX to MCO runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 56 extra late arrivals.

On time

71.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 780 completed flights

Avg delay

57 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.63%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

74.2%

Every carrier on PHX to MCO, 1,857 flights

These figures cover 792 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.

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Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on PHX to MCO

American flew 792 of the 1,857 flights on PHX to MCO, about 43% of it. Its 71.7% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 76.5% to American at 71.7%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on PHX to MCO
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Southwest Airlines	857	76.5%	44 min	0.58%	B+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	208	74.6%	68 min	1.44%	C
American Airlines (this page)	792	71.7%	57 min	0.63%	C+

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Departure window

When American runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 792 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am355 flights69.0%
11am–2pm18 flights—
2pm–5pm160 flights68.8%
5pm–8pm37 flights72.2%
8pm–5am222 flights77.4%

Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The overnight block holds up unusually well at 77.4% on time across 222 flights. Red-eyes fly into empty airspace and empty gates, and they are the first rotation of the aircraft's day rather than the last. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 355 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on PHX to MCO through the year

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

July is the worst month at 48.3% on time, 36 points below November, the best at 84.0%. 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 91 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.7% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 65.6%, a spread of 12 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late American on PHX to MCO runs when it is late

The 221 late arrivals split 95 under half an hour, 62 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 64 an hour or more.

15+ min early147 flights18.8%
Within 15 min412 flights52.8%
15–29 min late95 flights12.2%
30–59 min late62 flights7.9%
1–2 hours late42 flights5.4%
2+ hours late22 flights2.8%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 780 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 171 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 19 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 69 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at MCO.

The worst days

Worst days for American on PHX to MCO

The latest arrival of the period was on 20 July 2026, 10 hours 29 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across July, March, August and November, with no single month standing out.

The latest arrivals of American on PHX to MCO in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
20 July 2026	10 hours 29 minutes	Carrier
12 March 2026	9 hours 49 minutes	Carrier
15 March 2026	5 hours 5 minutes	National Airspace System
31 August 2026	4 hours 12 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
30 November 2025	3 hours 31 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

Carrier accounts for 45% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Carrier
45%
Late-arriving aircraft
36%
National Airspace System
19%
Security
0%
Extreme weather
0%

36% 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 36 to one. The split is drawn from 12,582 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,599 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.63%, 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

8.2% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 1,849 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 78.0% on time across 796 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. 792 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 MCO

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 792 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 71.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 780 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures