Route reliability record
AUS→PHL
Austin to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,202
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,431 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route 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 77.6%. The late ones land about 2.7 hours behind schedule. That rests on 1,202 AUS to PHL flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly AUS to PHL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.9%, against 75.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,172 completed flights
Avg delay
160 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.16%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
75.6% on time across 1,139 flights
These figures cover 1,202 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.4% 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
Which airline is most reliable on AUS to PHL
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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,139 | 75.6% | 165 min | 2.11% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 8 | 75.0% | 69 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 55 | 73.6% | 65 min | 3.64% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on AUS to PHL
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 16 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–8am311 flights83.9%
- 8am–11am148 flights83.2%
- 11am–2pm333 flights73.1%
- 2pm–5pm349 flights68.1%
- 5pm–8pm61 flights69.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 83.9% of the time, against 68.1% for the afternoon window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 349 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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.
July is the worst month at 66.7% on time, 18 points below April, the best at 84.2%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 126 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.4%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 52% of the 46,000 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.
- 52%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
37% 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 46,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 45,819 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 24,000 of the 46,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.16% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.33%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.4% 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 1,431 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 runs 77.3% on time across 1,201 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 1,202 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in PHL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 84.2% on time and July 66.7%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,172 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
AUS to PHL questions
How often is AUS to 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 24.5% of the 1,202 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 2.7 hours on average.
How reliable is AUS to PHL compared with the rest of the country?
75.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on AUS to PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 68.1%, 16 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 July delays on AUS to PHL?
July is the weakest month at 66.7% on time, compared with 84.2% in April. Across the year that is 18 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 AUS — the return legseparate record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- AUS to DEN, a related route78.4%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.9%
- AUS to DFW, a related route73.8%
- American Airlines on-time record75.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record73.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. AUS to PHL and PHL to AUS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.