Flight profile · American Airlines
AA520
Dallas–Fort Worth (DFW) to Phoenix (PHX) · scheduled 8:40 AM – 9:25 AM
How AA520 performs
773 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
AA520 arrived on time 77.5% of the time, against 71.1% for all DFW → PHX flights, so this departure is 6.4 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against American Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 6.3 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 773 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If AA520 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where AA520 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA520 | 77.5% | 1.03% | -1 min | 7.3% | 773 |
| American Airlines on DFW → PHX | 71.2% | 1.80% | -1 min | 10.7% | 13,744 |
| All DFW → PHX flights | 71.1% | 1.76% | -1 min | 10.7% | 16,011 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why AA520 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
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for AA520 on DFW → 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 AA520 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying AA520 came in 15 or more minutes late on 18% 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 DFW just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 553 of 765 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 |
|---|---|
| AA520 | 18% |
| Network, same turn | 23% |
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 90 minutes to 3 hours. How often AA520’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 DFW late, does that still matter by the time it reaches PHX?
AA520 pushes back an average of 17.2 minutes late and reaches the gate at PHX an average of 13.8 minutes late. The 3.4 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. It spends 23.6 minutes on the taxiways at DFW, 1.3 minutes longer than a typical DFW departure in the same hour.
On arrival at PHX, AA520 spends 10.7 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 3.2 minutes longer 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 92,608 departures from DFW scheduled in the clock hour AA520 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 AA520’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves DFW
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. AA520 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 92,608 departures from DFW are scheduled in the 8 AM–9 AM hour over the period, against 961,718 across the whole day.
AA520 is scheduled out of DFW at 8:40 AM, in the 8 AM–9 AM bank. Departures from DFW in that hour arrive on time 84.1% of the time against 73.1% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 11.0 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from DFW 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.
Other routes AA520 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| MIA→MSY Miami to New Orleans | January 7, 2025 – February 12, 2025 | 37 | — |
| MCO→CLT Orlando to Charlotte | December 19, 2024 – January 6, 2025 | 17 | — |
| PHL→ATL Philadelphia to Atlanta | November 6, 2024 – December 18, 2024 | 36 | — |
| PHX→DFW Phoenix to Dallas–Fort Worth | May 6, 2024 – September 3, 2024 | 91 | 75.8% |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route AA520 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.
43 min late
against a median of 1 min early
Percentiles over 773 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 773 records of AA520 operating DFW → 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
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