Carrier route record
AAPHX→ORD
American Airlines · Phoenix to Chicago
- Flights
- 2,994
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 54%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHX to ORD lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About 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 2,994 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,937 at 77.3% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHX to ORD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,908 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.24%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.4%
Every carrier on PHX to ORD, 5,593 flights
These figures cover 2,994 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 ORD
American flew 2,994 of the 5,593 flights on PHX to ORD, most of the route. Its 78.7% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 78.7% to Southwest at 60.8%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 77.3% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 60.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 459 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,994 | 78.7% | 75 min | 2.24% | B |
| United Airlines | 1,937 | 77.3% | 82 min | 0.52% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 203 | 68.8% | 122 min | 3.94% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 459 | 60.8% | 67 min | 1.31% | D |
The spread between United and Southwest is 17 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 17 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 24 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am771 flights91.0%
- 8am–11am569 flights78.6%
- 11am–2pm371 flights76.7%
- 2pm–5pm573 flights67.3%
- 5pm–8pm338 flights69.1%
- 8pm–5am372 flights81.1%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.0% of the time, against 67.3% for the afternoon window. That is 24 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 771 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHX to ORD through the year
June is the worst month at 65.8% on time, 23 points below February, the best at 88.6%. 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 278 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.4%. 12 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 46,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 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 46,000 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 46,253 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, 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 16,000 of the 46,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.24% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.63%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.6% 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 1,440 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 71.4% on time across 2,993 flights, 7 points below 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,994 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 ORD
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 88.6% on time and June 65.8%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,908 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to ORD, every carrier
- American on ORD to PHX, the return leg
- United Airlines on PHX to ORD77.3%
- Frontier Airlines on PHX to ORD68.8%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to ORD60.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) 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.