Carrier route record
AAPHX→SBP
American Airlines · Phoenix to San Luis Obispo
- Flights
- 533
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 43%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHX to SBP lands a B+, 4 points 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 533 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHX to SBP from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 528 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.56%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
83.1%
Every carrier on PHX to SBP, 1,231 flights
These figures cover 533 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 SBP
American flew 533 of the 1,231 flights on PHX to SBP, about 43% of it. Its 81.4% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 83.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 93.1% to SkyWest at 78.5%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 281 | 93.1% | 41 min | 1.07% | A |
| American Airlines (this page) | 533 | 81.4% | 81 min | 0.56% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 417 | 78.5% | 63 min | 0.96% | 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 24 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–8am5 flights—
- 8am–11am163 flights86.5%
- 11am–2pm71 flights90.1%
- 2pm–5pm93 flights84.8%
- 5pm–8pm71 flights82.9%
- 8pm–5am130 flights66.1%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 90.1% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 66.1%. 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 163 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHX to SBP through the year
July is the worst month at 63.5% on time, 29 points below December, the best at 92.7%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 74 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 77.5%. 11 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 64% of the 7,928 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.
- 64%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 6%National Airspace System
64% 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 7,928 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 64 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 7,928 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.56%, 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
6.6% 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 509 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 runs 81.6% on time across 532 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 533 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 SBP
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 533 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 81.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 528 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to SBP, every carrier
- American on SBP to PHX, the return leg
- Envoy Air on PHX to SBP93.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to SBP78.5%
- 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.