Carrier route record

AAPIT→PHX

American Airlines · Pittsburgh to Phoenix

Flights: 372
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 46%
Carriers: 3

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

American on PIT to PHX earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 372 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, American's PIT to PHX record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 72 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

84.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 369 completed flights

Avg delay

108 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.54%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.4%

Every carrier on PIT to PHX, 811 flights

These figures cover 372 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on PIT to PHX

American flew 372 of the 811 flights on PIT to PHX, about 46% of it. Its 84.8% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 84.8% to Southwest at 72.8%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on PIT to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines (this page)	372	84.8%	108 min	0.54%	B+
Allegiant Airthin sample	66	73.8%	53 min	1.52%	C
Southwest Airlines	373	72.8%	55 min	0.54%	C+

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 372 flights.

5am–8am268 flights83.5%
8am–11am97 flights89.6%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm6 flights—
8pm–5am1 flights—

Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 89.6% on time for the 8am–11am window against 83.5% for 5am–8am. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 268 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on PIT to PHX through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.August best, January worst

January is the weak month at 70.0% on time, against 96.7% in August. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 34 flights.

Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 90.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 81.0%. 10 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. Carrier accounts for 87% of the 6,066 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.

Carrier
87%
National Airspace System
9%
Extreme weather
3%
Late-arriving aircraft
0%
Security
0%

The largest share of delay minutes, 87%, 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 5,277 of the 6,066 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,066 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.54%, 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

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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 1,814 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.9% on time across 373 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 372 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 PIT to PHX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 372 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 84.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 369 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