Flight profile · American Airlines
AA1218
Washington (DCA) to Phoenix (PHX) · scheduled 10:20 AM – 12:40 PM
How AA1218 performs
1,096 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
AA1218 arrived on time 87.1% of the time, against 85.8% for all DCA → PHX flights, so this departure is 1.3 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against American Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 1.3 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 1,096 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If AA1218 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where AA1218 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA1218 | 87.1% | 0.82% | -17 min | 5.6% | 1,096 |
| American Airlines on DCA → PHX | 85.8% | 1.04% | -12 min | 4.9% | 3,362 |
| All DCA → PHX flights | 85.8% | 1.04% | -12 min | 4.9% | 3,362 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why AA1218 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for AA1218 on DCA → PHX. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies AA1218 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying AA1218 came in 15 or more minutes late on 24% of the departures where its previous flight is known. There are not enough departures in both groups to say how the flight left after a late one and after an on-time one.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into DCA just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 296 of 1,087 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late |
|---|---|
| AA1218 | 24% |
| Network, same turn | 33% |
The schedule leaves a long gap on the ground, which gives a late aircraft room to catch up before this flight pushes back.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 3 to 6 hours. How often AA1218’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s. There are not enough departures in both groups to compare how it left.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves DCA late, does that still matter by the time it reaches PHX?
AA1218 pushes back an average of 19.4 minutes late and reaches the gate at PHX an average of 2.3 minutes late. The 17.0 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. Its 22.5 minutes on the taxiways at DCA is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at PHX, AA1218 spends 5.9 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is 1.6 minutes shorter than a typical PHX arrival (7.5 min).
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached PHX. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 32,991 departures from DCA scheduled in the clock hour AA1218 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at PHX (598,496 flights), not just AA1218’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves DCA
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. AA1218 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 32,991 departures from DCA are scheduled in the 10 AM–11 AM hour over the period, against 435,076 across the whole day.
AA1218 is scheduled out of DCA at 10:20 AM, in the 10 AM–11 AM bank. Departures from DCA in that hour arrive on time 84.5% of the time against 76.5% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 8.0 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from DCA to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
By day of week
Does AA1218 run worse on particular days?
Saturday is historically the most reliable day and Tuesday the least, a gap of 7.2 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Days with fewer than 120 operations are not scored.
Other routes AA1218 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| PHX→DCA Phoenix to Washington | November 2, 2025 – May 21, 2026 | 91 | 78.2% |
| ORD→CLT Chicago to Charlotte | March 8, 2026 – April 6, 2026 | 22 | — |
| CLT→ORD Charlotte to Chicago | March 8, 2026 – April 6, 2026 | 18 | — |
| MIA→ORD Miami to Chicago | March 10–31, 2026 | 4 | — |
| PHX→SAN Phoenix to San Diego | May 6, 2024 – November 4, 2024 | 183 | 74.3% |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route AA1218 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
25 min late
against a median of 17 min early
Percentiles over 1,096 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,096 records of AA1218 operating DCA → PHX, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
Analysis last recomputed