Carrier route record

AAPHX→SEA

American Airlines · Phoenix to Seattle

Flights: 202
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 3%
Carriers: 7

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

American on PHX to SEA lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 202 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,764 at 87.8% on time.

Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 87.8% on time across 1,764 flights.

On time

81.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 201 completed flights

Avg delay

53 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.50%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

82.7%

Every carrier on PHX to SEA, 7,269 flights

These figures cover 202 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 SEA

American flew 202 of the 7,269 flights on PHX to SEA, about 3% of it. Its 81.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 82.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number six of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 87.8% to Southwest at 64.8%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 87.8% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 64.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,037 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on PHX to SEA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	1,764	87.8%	73 min	0.85%	A+
Envoy Air	692	87.1%	45 min	0.00%	A+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	165	86.1%	80 min	0.00%	A+
Alaska Airlines	2,903	84.9%	56 min	0.76%	B+
SkyWest Airlines	506	82.6%	61 min	0.59%	B+
American Airlines (this page)thin sample	202	81.6%	53 min	0.50%	B+
Southwest Airlines	1,037	64.8%	43 min	0.58%	D+

The spread between Delta and Southwest is 23 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 23 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

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 202 flights.

5am–8am26 flights—
8am–11am64 flights85.9%
11am–2pm110 flights81.7%
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm1 flights—
8pm–5am1 flights—

Scale runs 75% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 85.9% on time for the 8am–11am window against 81.7% for 11am–2pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 110 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on PHX to SEA through the year

Jul–Sep 20255 flights—
Oct–Dec 202581 flights77.8%
Jan–Mar 202680 flights78.5%
Apr–Jun 202636 flights100.0%

Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 81.6% on time across 202 flights.

American on PHX to SEA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 100.0% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 77.8%, a swing of 22 points on roughly 67 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 91.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.3%. 18 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 1,961 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
40%
Late-arriving aircraft
33%
National Airspace System
27%

The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, 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 785 of the 1,961 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,961 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 85.9% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.50%, 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

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

The 1,107 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.8% on time across 199 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 202 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 SEA

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 202 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 81.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 201 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