Carrier route record
AAPHX→SBA
American Airlines · Phoenix to Santa Barbara
- Flights
- 677
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 47%
- 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 SBA lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 677 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHX to SBA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 667 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.18%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
80.8%
Every carrier on PHX to SBA, 1,432 flights
These figures cover 677 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on PHX to SBA
American flew 677 of the 1,432 flights on PHX to SBA, about 47% of it. Its 77.2% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 91.7% to American at 77.2%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 12 | 91.7% | 84 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 359 | 85.6% | 56 min | 1.11% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines | 384 | 82.2% | 76 min | 1.56% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 677 | 77.2% | 95 min | 1.18% | 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 15 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–8am2 flights—
- 8am–11am105 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm132 flights78.3%
- 2pm–5pm82 flights85.4%
- 5pm–8pm153 flights75.5%
- 8pm–5am203 flights70.3%
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 85.4% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 70.3%. 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 203 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHX to SBA through the year
July is the worst month at 63.8% on time, 23 points below January, the best at 87.0%. 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.8% 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. Carrier accounts for 52% of the 14,000 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.
- 52%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, 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 7,543 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 14,466 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.18% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 455 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 2pm–5pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.4% on time across 677 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 677 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 SBA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 677 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 77.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 667 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to SBA, every carrier
- American on SBA to PHX, the return leg
- Envoy Air on PHX to SBA85.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to SBA82.2%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) 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.