Carrier route record
AAFLL→PHL
American Airlines · Fort Lauderdale to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,628
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 45%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on FLL to PHL lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 1,628 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Spirit Airlines, flew 572 at 71.3% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate American on FLL to PHL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,578 completed flights
Avg delay
116 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.83%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.0%
Every carrier on FLL to PHL, 3,589 flights
These figures cover 1,628 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on FLL to PHL
American flew 1,628 of the 3,589 flights on FLL to PHL, about 45% of it. Its 77.4% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 77.4% to Frontier at 62.3%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Spirit Airlines arrives on time 71.3% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 62.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 657 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,628 | 77.4% | 116 min | 2.83% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 572 | 71.3% | 71 min | 5.24% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 732 | 69.0% | 73 min | 3.28% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 657 | 62.3% | 107 min | 3.65% | D− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 5.2% 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 37 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am488 flights94.9%
- 8am–11am278 flights81.0%
- 11am–2pm208 flights76.7%
- 2pm–5pm443 flights65.2%
- 5pm–8pm27 flights—
- 8pm–5am184 flights57.9%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 57.9% on time, against 94.9% 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 488 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on FLL to PHL through the year
December is the weak month at 71.3% on time, against 86.5% 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. July was the busiest month here, with 185 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.4%, a spread of 15 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on FLL to PHL runs when it is late
American on FLL to PHL often beats the schedule: 637 of 1,578 completed flights, 40%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 357 late arrivals split 86 under half an hour, 103 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 168 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early637 flights40.4%
- Within 15 min584 flights37.0%
- 15–29 min late86 flights5.4%
- 30–59 min late103 flights6.5%
- 1–2 hours late89 flights5.6%
- 2+ hours late79 flights5.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,578 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
78 of 384 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. 51 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on FLL to PHL
The latest arrival of the period was on 23 October 2025, 39 hours 17 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 23 October 2025 | 39 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 August 2026 | 26 hours 8 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 March 2026 | 24 hours 48 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 August 2026 | 24 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 July 2026 | 23 hours 9 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 41,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 41,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 41,381 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 16,000 of the 41,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.83%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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 costs
10.6% 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.
The 993 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.
The return leg runs 75.4% on time across 1,628 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 1,628 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on FLL to PHL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.83% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 1,578 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FLL to PHL, every carrier
- American on PHL to FLL, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on FLL to PHL71.3%
- JetBlue Airways on FLL to PHL69.0%
- Frontier Airlines on FLL to PHL62.3%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.