Carrier route record

AAPHX→RDU

American Airlines · Phoenix to Raleigh

Flights: 489
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 60%
Carriers: 2

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

American on PHX to RDU lands a B+, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four 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 489 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHX to RDU from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

76.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 485 completed flights

Avg delay

66 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.82%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

74.4%

Every carrier on PHX to RDU, 811 flights

These figures cover 489 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 RDU

American flew 489 of the 811 flights on PHX to RDU, most of the route. Its 76.1% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 76.1% to Southwest at 71.9%. 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 RDU
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines (this page)	489	76.1%	66 min	0.82%	B+
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	322	71.9%	45 min	1.24%	C

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 489 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am145 flights75.2%
11am–2pm7 flights—
2pm–5pm220 flights74.1%
5pm–8pm113 flights81.7%
8pm–5am4 flights—

Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 81.7% on time. The full set of windows spans 8 points.

Across the year

American on PHX to RDU through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.May best, June worst

June is the worst month at 60.8% on time, 25 points below May, the best at 85.7%. 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 60 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 70.8%. 12 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 7,678 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
55%
Carrier
33%
National Airspace System
12%

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 7,678 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 7,678 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, 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

7.0% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 1,891 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 87.8% on time across 489 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 489 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 RDU

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 489 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 76.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 485 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