Carrier route record

AAPHX→SLC

American Airlines · Phoenix to Salt Lake City

Flights: 266
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 5%
Carriers: 6

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

American on PHX to SLC earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 266 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,708 at 90.4% on time.

Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 90.4% on time across 1,708 flights.

On time

86.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 264 completed flights

Avg delay

70 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.38%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

83.0%

Every carrier on PHX to SLC, 5,757 flights

These figures cover 266 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 SLC

American flew 266 of the 5,757 flights on PHX to SLC, about 5% of it. Its 86.7% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 83.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 90.4% to Southwest at 75.5%. 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 90.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 75.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,858 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on PHX to SLC
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	1,708	90.4%	75 min	0.59%	A+
American Airlines (this page)thin sample	266	86.7%	70 min	0.38%	A+
Frontier Airlines	677	83.6%	78 min	1.77%	B
Envoy Airthin sample	89	83.1%	46 min	0.00%	B+
SkyWest Airlines	1,159	83.1%	67 min	0.26%	B+
Southwest Airlines	1,858	75.5%	48 min	0.32%	B+

The spread between Delta and Southwest is 15 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 15 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

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 13 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am30 flights100.0%
8am–11am197 flights86.7%
11am–2pm19 flights—
2pm–5pm19 flights—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am1 flights—

Scale runs 80% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 100.0% of the time, against 86.7% for the morning window. That is 13 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 197 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on PHX to SLC through the year

Jul–Sep 202563 flights79.4%
Oct–Dec 2025139 flights86.1%
Jan–Mar 202658 flights94.8%
Apr–Jun 20266 flights—

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 86.7% on time across 266 flights.

American on PHX to SLC did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 94.8% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 79.4%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 89 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 93.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 80.5%. 13 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 54% of the 2,448 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
54%
Carrier
41%
National Airspace System
5%

54% 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 2,448 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 54 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 2,448 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, 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 1,009 of the 2,448 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.38%, 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

5.7% 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 507 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 84.5% on time across 266 flights, within 2 points 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. 266 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 SLC

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 266 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 86.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 264 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