Carrier route record
AASJC→PHX
American Airlines · San Jose to Phoenix
- Flights
- 639
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 21%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on SJC to PHX earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 10 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 639 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, American's SJC to PHX record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 99 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 633 completed flights
Avg delay
102 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.78%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
82.0%
Every carrier on SJC to PHX, 3,031 flights
These figures cover 639 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 SJC to PHX
American flew 639 of the 3,031 flights on SJC to PHX, about 21% of it. Its 87.5% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 82.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 89.9% to Southwest at 78.6%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 220 | 89.9% | 50 min | 0.91% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 639 | 87.5% | 102 min | 0.78% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 293 | 85.5% | 97 min | 1.02% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,879 | 78.6% | 48 min | 0.64% | B+ |
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 10 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–8am357 flights89.8%
- 8am–11am25 flights—
- 11am–2pm132 flights86.2%
- 2pm–5pm22 flights—
- 5pm–8pm103 flights79.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.8% of the time, against 79.6% for the evening window. That is 10 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 357 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on SJC to PHX through the year
August is the worst month at 82.2% on time, 12 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. June was the busiest month here, with 81 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 95.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 83.3%. 12 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 61% of the 8,068 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.
- 61%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 4%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
61% 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 8,068 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 44 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 8,068 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 89.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.78%, 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
5.4% 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.
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. 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.5% on time across 637 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 639 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. 639 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 87.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 633 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SJC to PHX, every carrier
- American on PHX to SJC, the return leg
- Envoy Air on SJC to PHX89.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on SJC to PHX85.5%
- Southwest Airlines on SJC to PHX78.6%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International (SJC) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) 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.