Philadelphia, PA · departure reliability
PHL
Philadelphia International
- Departures
- 101,709
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Carriers
- 10
- US rank
- #23 by volume
Philadelphia
Philadelphia International sits in the middle of the pack with a B−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 101,709 flights, of which Republic Airways flew 6,782 at 82.2% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the ten carriers covered here at 82.2% on time across 6,782 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.2%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
3.09%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
82.2% on time here
These figures cover 102,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of PHL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 82.2% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 67.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 768 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 46,621 | 76.1% | 79 min | 2.47% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 18,372 | 73.6% | 88 min | 5.53% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 9,389 | 67.7% | 85 min | 2.93% | C |
| Republic Airways | 6,782 | 82.2% | 78 min | 3.18% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 6,525 | 82.2% | 91 min | 2.70% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 5,129 | 71.4% | 63 min | 1.46% | C |
| United Airlines | 4,503 | 76.6% | 94 min | 1.29% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,781 | 71.5% | 79 min | 3.65% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,658 | 74.2% | 69 min | 5.67% | C− |
| Alaska Airlines | 768 | 67.3% | 60 min | 1.56% | C |
Spirit Airlines cancels 5.7% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Busiest routes out of PHL
Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from PHL, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 75.2%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PHL to ATL · Atlanta | 5,793 | 78.0% | 71 min | 3.11% | B− |
| PHL to MCO · Orlando | 5,338 | 72.4% | 84 min | 2.68% | C |
| PHL to ORD · Chicago | 5,075 | 73.1% | 102 min | 3.59% | C− |
| PHL to BOS · Boston | 5,035 | 74.5% | 81 min | 3.42% | C− |
| PHL to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 3,588 | 73.1% | 77 min | 3.26% | C− |
| PHL to CLT · Charlotte | 3,535 | 80.2% | 80 min | 2.74% | B |
| PHL to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 3,479 | 78.1% | 92 min | 3.39% | B− |
| PHL to MIA · Miami | 3,286 | 77.0% | 78 min | 2.86% | B |
| PHL to DEN · Denver | 3,060 | 73.3% | 73 min | 1.54% | C |
| PHL to DTW · Detroit | 3,000 | 79.1% | 99 min | 3.90% | B− |
| PHL to BNA · Nashville | 2,852 | 74.5% | 72 min | 3.02% | C− |
| PHL to RDU · Raleigh | 2,665 | 75.0% | 81 min | 3.26% | B− |
| PHL to TPA · Tampa | 2,660 | 72.6% | 82 min | 2.26% | C |
| PHL to LAX · Los Angeles | 2,380 | 78.3% | 70 min | 1.55% | B |
| PHL to PHX · Phoenix | 2,306 | 80.4% | 69 min | 1.69% | B |
| PHL to MSP · Minneapolis | 2,086 | 78.1% | 108 min | 4.31% | B− |
| PHL to SFO · San Francisco | 2,085 | 71.9% | 80 min | 1.25% | C |
| PHL to SJU · San Juan | 1,992 | 63.3% | 78 min | 3.36% | D− |
| PHL to IAH · Houston | 1,878 | 81.7% | 86 min | 1.92% | B |
| PHL to STL · St. Louis | 1,610 | 77.7% | 75 min | 2.11% | B |
| PHL to IND · Indianapolis | 1,594 | 76.3% | 79 min | 4.27% | B− |
| PHL to JAX · Jacksonville | 1,563 | 74.9% | 80 min | 2.56% | C |
| PHL to MDW · Chicago | 1,514 | 73.0% | 72 min | 1.78% | C |
| PHL to LAS · Las Vegas | 1,475 | 75.0% | 77 min | 1.69% | B |
| PHL to PBI · West Palm Beach | 1,451 | 75.3% | 73 min | 2.62% | B |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave PHL
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 19 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am12,424 flights85.7%
- 8am–11am24,173 flights82.7%
- 11am–2pm14,998 flights76.5%
- 2pm–5pm16,548 flights70.2%
- 5pm–8pm22,597 flights66.6%
- 8pm–5am10,969 flights69.7%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 85.7% of the time, against 66.6% for the evening window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 24,173 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHL departures by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On departures from Philadelphia (PHL), the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 66.6%, a wide gap of 19.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.7%
- 8–11am82.7%
- 11am–2pm76.5%
- 2–5pm70.2%
- 5–8pm66.6%
- 8pm–5am69.7%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When PHL runs late
PHL's year swings by 17 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
December is the weak month at 65.3% on time, against 82.0% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. August was the busiest month here, with 10,036 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.0%, a spread of 10 points.
PHL month by month
From Europe
Transatlantic routes into PHL
17 European airports send scheduled passenger flights to PHL, 10,979 flights a year in both directions by the DOT's international count. The DOT keeps no delay record for international flights; the UK routes carry the CAA's departure punctuality, and every route sets its departure airport's EUROCONTROL figures beside PHL's own record above.
- LHR to PHL · London1,866 flights
- DUB to PHL · Dublin1,316 flights
- FCO to PHL · Rome752 flights
- MAD to PHL · Madrid722 flights
- CDG to PHL · Paris709 flights
- BCN to PHL · Barcelona708 flights
- LIS to PHL · Lisbon704 flights
- AMS to PHL · Amsterdam679 flights
- ZRH to PHL · Zurich669 flights
- ATH to PHL · Athens466 flights
- VCE to PHL · Venice418 flights
- FRA to PHL · Frankfurt415 flights
Delay causes
Why PHL gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 1.98 million delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 1.98 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 1,983,333 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 85.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.09%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
10.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
101,709 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
What to do with this
Flying out of PHL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.09% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 98,255 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL delay questions
How often is Philadelphia (PHL) delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.8% of the 101,709 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Philadelphia (PHL)?
Republic Airways leads at 82.2% on time across 6,782 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 67.3%, a gap of 15 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on Philadelphia (PHL)?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.6%, 19 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are December delays on Philadelphia (PHL)?
December is the weakest month at 65.3% on time, compared with 82.0% in September. Across the year that is 17 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to ATL — Atlanta78.0%
- PHL to MCO — Orlando72.4%
- PHL to ORD — Chicago73.1%
- PHL to BOS — Boston74.5%
- PHL to FLL — Fort Lauderdale73.1%
- PHL to CLT — Charlotte80.2%
- American Airlines on-time record76.1%
- PSA Airlines on-time record73.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record67.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record82.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- US airports with the biggest gap between their best and worst month
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.