Carrier route record
AAPHX→SNA
American Airlines · Phoenix to Santa Ana
- Flights
- 1,894
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 41%
- 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 SNA lands a B+, about a point 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 about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,894 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHX to SNA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,884 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.37%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.6%
Every carrier on PHX to SNA, 4,609 flights
These figures cover 1,894 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 SNA
American flew 1,894 of the 4,609 flights on PHX to SNA, about 41% of it. Its 78.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 87.3% to American at 78.9%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 288 | 87.3% | 68 min | 1.04% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,427 | 79.3% | 45 min | 0.41% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,894 | 78.9% | 66 min | 0.37% | B+ |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on PHX to SNA
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am224 flights91.1%
- 8am–11am361 flights80.8%
- 11am–2pm365 flights75.5%
- 2pm–5pm418 flights72.0%
- 5pm–8pm272 flights80.1%
- 8pm–5am254 flights80.2%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.1% of the time, against 72.0% for the afternoon window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 418 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHX to SNA through the year
July is the worst month at 73.9% on time, 11 points below October, the best at 85.1%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 182 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.1%. 8 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 50% of the 26,000 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% 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 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 33 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 26,214 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 9,379 of the 26,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.37%, 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
7.3% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 338 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 81.0% on time across 1,894 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,894 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking American on PHX to SNA
Put together: take the 5am–8am departure, avoid July if the dates are flexible, and if two carriers are within a few dollars of each other, Southwest is the one with the record behind it. None of that guarantees an on-time arrival; it moves the odds by 19 points, which is the most any booking decision can do. 1,884 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to SNA, every carrier
- American on SNA to PHX, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on PHX to SNA87.3%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to SNA79.3%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) 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.