Carrier route record
AAIAH→PHL
American Airlines · Houston to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 717
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 39%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on IAH 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 about 2.6 hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 717 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on IAH 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
78.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 693 completed flights
Avg delay
159 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.35%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.7%
Every carrier on IAH to PHL, 1,832 flights
These figures cover 717 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% 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 IAH to PHL
American flew 717 of the 1,832 flights on IAH to PHL, about 39% of it. Its 78.2% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 83.0% to Republic at 60.0%. Four of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 891 | 83.0% | 67 min | 1.01% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 717 | 78.2% | 159 min | 3.35% | B− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 42 | 76.9% | 151 min | 4.76% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 70 | 72.5% | 80 min | 1.43% | C |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 92 | 70.8% | 162 min | 2.17% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 20 | 60.0% | 150 min | 0.00% | D+ |
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 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–8am240 flights82.2%
- 8am–11am98 flights87.5%
- 11am–2pm230 flights71.6%
- 2pm–5pm149 flights75.9%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 71.6% on time against 87.5% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 240 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on IAH to PHL through the year
July is the worst month at 60.8% on time, 35 points below February, the best at 95.9%. 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 83 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 71.3%. 18 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. Carrier accounts for 52% of the 24,000 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
- 8%National Airspace System
- 3%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 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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 23,929 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 13,000 of the 24,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.35%, against 1.81% 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.
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. 11.0% 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 1,325 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 74.1% on time across 714 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 717 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 IAH to PHL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.35% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 2.6 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. 693 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to PHL, every carrier
- American on PHL to IAH, the return leg
- United Airlines on IAH to PHL83.0%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.