Carrier route record
AAPHX→SBA
American Airlines · Phoenix to Santa Barbara
- Flights
- 650
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 45%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHX to SBA lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 650 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 366 at 88.1% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
78.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 642 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.08%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
82.2%
Every carrier on PHX to SBA, 1,432 flights
These figures cover 650 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% 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 SBA
American flew 650 of the 1,432 flights on PHX to SBA, about 45% of it. Its 78.5% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 82.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 88.1% to American at 78.5%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 366 | 88.1% | 64 min | 0.82% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 8 | 87.5% | 84 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 408 | 82.7% | 68 min | 0.98% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 650 | 78.5% | 84 min | 1.08% | B |
No carrier stands out. Envoy tops the table at 88.1%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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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 14 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am6 flights—
- 8am–11am81 flights82.7%
- 11am–2pm110 flights83.2%
- 2pm–5pm99 flights84.8%
- 5pm–8pm149 flights77.9%
- 8pm–5am205 flights71.1%
Scale runs 65% 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 84.8% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 71.1%. 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 205 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHX to SBA through the year
December is the weak month at 64.2% on time, against 87.0% in January. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 91 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 70.8%, a spread of 17 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on PHX to SBA runs when it is late
The 138 late arrivals split 49 under half an hour, 36 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 53 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early148 flights23.1%
- Within 15 min356 flights55.5%
- 15–29 min late49 flights7.6%
- 30–59 min late36 flights5.6%
- 1–2 hours late35 flights5.5%
- 2+ hours late18 flights2.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 642 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
25 of 140 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. 23 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on PHX to SBA
The latest arrival of the period was on 4 December 2025, 12 hours 52 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 4 December 2025 | 12 hours 52 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 March 2026 | 11 hours 45 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 13 March 2026 | 11 hours 24 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 February 2026 | 9 hours 52 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 April 2026 | 9 hours 32 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 50% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Carrier
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 11,530 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,748 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.08% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.3% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 86.0% on time across 649 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 650 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. 650 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 78.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 642 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 SBA88.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to SBA82.7%
- 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 7.05 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.