Carrier route record
AAPHX→SBP
American Airlines · Phoenix to San Luis Obispo
- Flights
- 530
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 43%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHX to SBP lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 530 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, American's PHX to SBP record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 63 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 524 completed flights
Avg delay
96 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.75%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
83.5%
Every carrier on PHX to SBP, 1,240 flights
These figures cover 530 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on PHX to SBP
American flew 530 of the 1,240 flights on PHX to SBP, about 43% of it. Its 83.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 83.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 90.2% to SkyWest at 77.4%. 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 | 331 | 90.2% | 50 min | 0.91% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 530 | 83.6% | 96 min | 0.75% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 379 | 77.4% | 70 min | 0.79% | B+ |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am5 flights—
- 8am–11am189 flights89.9%
- 11am–2pm71 flights90.1%
- 2pm–5pm81 flights83.8%
- 5pm–8pm53 flights80.8%
- 8pm–5am131 flights70.9%
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 70.9%. 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 189 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHX to SBP through the year
Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 72.1%. December is the strongest month at 92.7%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 21 points. November was the busiest month here, with 74 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 90.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.3%, a spread of 15 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on PHX to SBP runs when it is late
American on PHX to SBP often beats the schedule: 165 of 524 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 86 late arrivals split 26 under half an hour, 24 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 36 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early165 flights31.5%
- Within 15 min273 flights52.1%
- 15–29 min late26 flights5.0%
- 30–59 min late24 flights4.6%
- 1–2 hours late18 flights3.4%
- 2+ hours late18 flights3.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 524 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
18 of 97 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. Only 7 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on PHX to SBP
The latest arrival of the period was on 24 September 2025, 15 hours 54 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 24 September 2025 | 15 hours 54 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 March 2026 | 10 hours 18 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 July 2026 | 7 hours 30 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 September 2025 | 6 hours 26 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 13 October 2025 | 5 hours 50 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 63% of the 8,235 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 63%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 3%National Airspace System
63% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,235 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 63 to one. The split is drawn from 8,235 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.75%, below the national 1.89% 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
6.9% 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.
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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.0% on time across 531 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 530 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. 530 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 83.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 524 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 SBP90.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on PHX to SBP77.4%
- 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.