Carrier route record

AASJC→PHX

American Airlines · San Jose to Phoenix

Flights: 685
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 23%
Carriers: 4

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

American on SJC to PHX 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 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 685 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, American's SJC to PHX record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 88 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

86.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 675 completed flights

Avg delay

90 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.88%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

80.9%

Every carrier on SJC to PHX, 3,013 flights

These figures cover 685 flights between September 2025 and August 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.

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Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on SJC to PHX

American flew 685 of the 3,013 flights on SJC to PHX, about 23% of it. Its 86.1% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 80.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 89.4% to Southwest at 77.7%. Two 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 SJC to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	190	89.4%	52 min	1.05%	A
American Airlines (this page)	685	86.1%	90 min	0.88%	A+
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	269	84.2%	97 min	1.12%	B
Southwest Airlines	1,869	77.7%	49 min	0.64%	B+

Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.

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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am358 flights90.4%
8am–11am24 flights—
11am–2pm188 flights83.9%
2pm–5pm27 flights—
5pm–8pm88 flights72.9%
8pm–5am—

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 90.4% of the time, against 72.9% for the evening window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 358 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on SJC to PHX through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, July worst

July is the worst month at 75.6% on time, 19 points below September, the best at 94.6%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 84 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 92.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 80.4%, a spread of 13 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late American on SJC to PHX runs when it is late

American on SJC to PHX often beats the schedule: 189 of 675 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 94 late arrivals split 33 under half an hour, 21 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 40 an hour or more.

15+ min early189 flights28.0%
Within 15 min392 flights58.1%
15–29 min late33 flights4.9%
30–59 min late21 flights3.1%
1–2 hours late24 flights3.6%
2+ hours late16 flights2.4%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 675 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

16 of 95 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. 15 flights left on time and still arrived late.

The worst days

Worst days for American on SJC to PHX

The latest arrival of the period was on 12 June 2026, 14 hours 38 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.

The latest arrivals of American on SJC to PHX in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
12 June 2026	14 hours 38 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
25 January 2026	12 hours 32 minutes	Carrier
24 July 2026	6 hours 22 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
31 October 2025	6 hours 3 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
13 June 2026	5 hours 21 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 62% of the 8,443 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Late-arriving aircraft
62%
Carrier
32%
National Airspace System
4%
Extreme weather
2%

62% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,443 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 29 to one. The split is drawn from 8,443 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.4% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.88%, below the national 1.89% 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

5.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 621 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.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.6% on time across 683 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 685 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 SJC to PHX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 685 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 86.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 675 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures