Carrier route record

AASNA→PHX

American Airlines · Santa Ana to Phoenix

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 SNA to PHX lands a B+, 3 points 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,894 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on SNA to PHX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

81.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,881 completed flights

Avg delay

82 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.58%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

82.3%

Every carrier on SNA to PHX, 4,608 flights

These figures cover 1,894 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 SNA to PHX

American flew 1,894 of the 4,608 flights on SNA to PHX, about 41% of it. Its 81.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 82.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 83.2% to American at 81.0%. 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 SNA to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Southwest Airlines	2,426	83.2%	47 min	0.66%	B+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	288	83.2%	92 min	2.43%	B
American Airlines (this page)	1,894	81.0%	82 min	0.58%	B+

Flight by flight

American flight numbers on SNA to PHX

AA 62806:4588.9% · 360 flights

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 20 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–8am360 flights88.9%
8am–11am362 flights92.2%
11am–2pm577 flights76.5%
2pm–5pm348 flights72.7%
5pm–8pm246 flights75.1%
8pm–5am1 flights—

Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 92.2% of the time, against 72.7% for the afternoon window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 577 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on SNA to PHX through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.December best, November worst

Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 70.9%. December is the strongest month at 85.8%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 15 points. May was the busiest month here, with 182 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.1%. 14 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 57% of the 29,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
57%
Carrier
31%
National Airspace System
8%
Extreme weather
3%

57% 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 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 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 29,336 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 92.2% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.58%, 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

7.1% 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 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg runs 78.9% 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 SNA to PHX

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. December runs 85.8% on time and November 70.9%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of November before you think about anything else. 1,881 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