Route reliability record
JAX→PHL
Jacksonville to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,553
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 742 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,553 JAX to PHL flights, of which American Airlines flew 745 at 80.4% on time.
Best time to fly JAX to PHL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.5%, against 78.5% 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
78.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,502 completed flights
Avg delay
101 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.28%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
80.4% on time across 745 flights
These figures cover 1,553 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.9% 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 JAX to PHL
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 72 | 91.5% | 126 min | 1.39% | A |
| American Airlines | 745 | 80.4% | 106 min | 2.28% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 472 | 76.8% | 109 min | 5.08% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 264 | 72.5% | 76 min | 3.41% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.1% 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Jacksonville to Philadelphia
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. JAX → PHLJacksonville to Philadelphia | American Airlines | 78.6% | 80.4% | 2.28% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. JAX → PHLJacksonville to Philadelphia | PSA Airlines | 72.9% | 76.8% | 5.08% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 22 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am360 flights90.6%
- 8am–11am315 flights85.8%
- 11am–2pm49 flights87.5%
- 2pm–5pm365 flights68.2%
- 5pm–8pm316 flights69.0%
- 8pm–5am148 flights75.2%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.6% of the time, against 68.2% for the afternoon window. That is 22 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 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 34 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 54.6% on time, 34 points below April, the best at 89.0%. 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 162 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.8%. 15 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 60% of the 32,000 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.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
60% 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 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 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 32,472 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 90.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.28%, 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 actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.9% 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 742 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 76.6% on time across 1,554 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 1,553 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 3.28% 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. 1,502 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JAX to PHL questions
How often is JAX 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 21.5% of the 1,553 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on JAX to PHL?
American Airlines leads at 80.4% on time across 745 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 76.8%, a gap of 4 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on JAX to PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 68.2%, 22 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 JAX to PHL?
July is the weakest month at 54.6% on time, compared with 89.0% in April. Across the year that is 34 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 JAX — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- American Airlines on JAX to PHL80.4%
- PSA Airlines on JAX to PHL76.8%
- Frontier Airlines on JAX to PHL72.5%
- JAX to ATL, a related route84.9%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.9%
- JAX to ORD, a related route77.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record91.5%
- American Airlines on-time record80.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record76.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. JAX to PHL and PHL to JAX are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed JAX to PHL’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.