Route reliability record
CVG→PHL
Cincinnati to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,185
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 507 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About 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 1,185 CVG to PHL flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly CVG to PHL: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.5% of the time and Friday flights 83.2%, against 79.4% 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
79.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,149 completed flights
Avg delay
101 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.95%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
79.1% on time across 999 flights
These figures cover 1,185 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% 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 CVG 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 128 | 91.3% | 65 min | 0.78% | A+ |
| PSA Airlines | 999 | 79.1% | 101 min | 3.30% | B− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 58 | 57.9% | 111 min | 1.72% | D |
Flight by flight
Flights on CVG 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 15 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–8am209 flights83.4%
- 8am–11am297 flights86.5%
- 11am–2pm235 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm300 flights71.6%
- 5pm–8pm144 flights71.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 86.5% of the time, against 71.6% for the evening window. That is 15 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 300 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 46 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 43.9% on time, 46 points below April, the best at 90.2%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 137 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 75.3%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 24,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
40% 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 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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 23,828 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, 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 8,216 of the 24,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.95%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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.
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. 10.4% 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 507 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 76.9% on time across 1,184 flights, within 3 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 1,185 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 delay figures matter less here than the 2.95% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,149 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CVG to PHL questions
How often is CVG to PHL delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.6% of the 1,185 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is CVG to PHL compared with the rest of the country?
79.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CVG to PHL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 86.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.6%, 15 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 CVG to PHL?
July is the weakest month at 43.9% on time, compared with 90.2% in April. Across the year that is 46 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 CVG — the return legseparate record
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on CVG to PHL91.3%
- PSA Airlines on CVG to PHL79.1%
- CVG to ORD, a related route70.2%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.9%
- CVG to ATL, a related route86.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record91.3%
- PSA Airlines on-time record79.1%
- American Airlines on-time record57.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. CVG to PHL and PHL to CVG 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.