Carrier route record
AAATL→PHL
American Airlines · Atlanta to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 592
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 10%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on ATL to PHL lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 592 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, PSA Airlines, flew 834 at 81.5% on time.
PSA Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 81.5% on time across 834 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 579 completed flights
Avg delay
120 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.03%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.9%
Every carrier on ATL to PHL, 5,713 flights
These figures cover 592 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on ATL to PHL
American flew 592 of the 5,713 flights on ATL to PHL, about 10% of it. Its 78.1% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 90.7% to Frontier at 62.4%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. PSA Airlines arrives on time 81.5% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 62.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,010 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 156 | 90.7% | 95 min | 3.85% | A− |
| PSA Airlines | 834 | 81.5% | 98 min | 4.56% | B− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 592 | 78.1% | 120 min | 2.03% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,028 | 76.1% | 52 min | 2.48% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 93 | 65.2% | 72 min | 1.08% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,010 | 62.4% | 84 min | 2.97% | D |
PSA Airlines cancels 4.6% 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.
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 44 points, against 19 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am289 flights92.9%
- 8am–11am11 flights—
- 11am–2pm43 flights79.1%
- 2pm–5pm179 flights64.0%
- 5pm–8pm70 flights48.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 48.5% on time, against 92.9% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 289 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on ATL to PHL through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025229 flights75.1%
- Oct–Dec 2025122 flights79.3%
- Jan–Mar 202642 flights77.5%
- Apr–Jun 2026199 flights80.7%
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 78.1% on time across 592 flights.
Quarter by quarter American on ATL to PHL held fairly steady: 75.1% in Jul–Sep 2025, 79.3% in Oct–Dec 2025, 77.5% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 80.7% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 6 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.9%. 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 54% of the 15,000 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.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
54% 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 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 39 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 15,281 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 92.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.03% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.17%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 666 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 68.3% on time across 594 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 592 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 ATL to PHL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 592 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 78.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 579 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to PHL, every carrier
- American on PHL to ATL, the return leg
- Republic Airways on ATL to PHL90.7%
- PSA Airlines on ATL to PHL81.5%
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to PHL76.1%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to PHL62.4%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.