Carrier route record

AAPHX→TUS

American Airlines · Phoenix to Tucson

Flights: 338
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 10%
Carriers: 4

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

American on PHX to TUS lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six 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 338 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 570 at 88.9% on time.

Set against the rest of the country, American's PHX to TUS record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 62 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

83.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 333 completed flights

Avg delay

72 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.48%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

82.3%

Every carrier on PHX to TUS, 3,395 flights

These figures cover 338 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 TUS

American flew 338 of the 3,395 flights on PHX to TUS, about 10% of it. Its 83.8% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 82.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 88.9% to Southwest at 71.9%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 88.9% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 81.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,251 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on PHX to TUS
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Air	570	88.9%	48 min	0.53%	A+
American Airlines (this page)thin sample	338	83.8%	72 min	1.48%	B
SkyWest Airlines	2,251	81.5%	84 min	0.53%	B+
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	236	71.9%	49 min	0.42%	C+

Envoy leads SkyWest by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

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 22 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am—
8am–11am149 flights89.2%
11am–2pm49 flights89.4%
2pm–5pm51 flights84.0%
5pm–8pm46 flights67.4%
8pm–5am43 flights76.2%

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 89.4% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 67.4%. 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 149 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on PHX to TUS through the year

Jul–Sep 202565 flights76.9%
Oct–Dec 2025156 flights87.0%
Jan–Mar 202675 flights87.7%
Apr–Jun 202642 flights75.6%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. 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 83.8% on time across 338 flights.

American on PHX to TUS did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 87.7% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 75.6%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 85 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 98.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.9%. 26 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 63% of the 3,880 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
63%
Carrier
33%
National Airspace System
4%
Extreme weather
0%

63% 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 3,880 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 63 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 3,880 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.48% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.0% 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.

At 109 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.

The return leg runs 84.7% on time across 338 flights, within about 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. 338 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 TUS

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 338 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 83.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 333 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