Route reliability record
LAX→PHL
Los Angeles to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 2,372
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,402 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,372 LAX to PHL flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly LAX to PHL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.6%, against 79.6% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,328 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.64%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
80.0% on time across 2,328 flights
These figures cover 2,372 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LAX 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 | 2,328 | 80.0% | 74 min | 1.68% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 44 | 59.1% | 59 min | 0.00% | D+ |
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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 13 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am480 flights88.4%
- 8am–11am418 flights76.1%
- 11am–2pm355 flights75.0%
- 2pm–5pm389 flights75.1%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am730 flights80.5%
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 75.0% on time against 88.4% for 5am–8am. 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 730 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAX to PHL by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On LAX to PHL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.4% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 75.0%, a wide gap of 13.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.4%
- 8–11am76.1%
- 11am–2pm75.0%
- 2–5pm75.1%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am80.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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 67.2% on time, 19 points below April, the best at 86.3%. 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 250 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 76.0%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 35,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
- 0%Extreme weather
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 35,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 46 to one. The split is drawn from 34,711 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 13,000 of the 35,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.64% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,402 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 78.3% on time across 2,380 flights, within about a point 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 2,372 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 86.3% on time and July 67.2%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,328 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to PHL questions
How often is LAX 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 20.4% of the 2,372 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is LAX to PHL compared with the rest of the country?
79.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 LAX to PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.4% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 75.0%, 13 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 LAX to PHL?
July is the weakest month at 67.2% on time, compared with 86.3% in April. Across the year that is 19 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 LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.6%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- American Airlines on-time record80.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record59.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. LAX to PHL and PHL to LAX 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.