Carrier route record

AAMCI→PHL

American Airlines · Kansas City to Philadelphia

Flights: 530
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 59%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on MCI to PHL lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly 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 530 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, American's MCI to PHL record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 41 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

81.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 526 completed flights

Avg delay

117 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.75%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

81.0%

Every carrier on MCI to PHL, 903 flights

These figures cover 530 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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

American against every carrier on MCI to PHL

American flew 530 of the 903 flights on MCI to PHL, most of the route. Its 81.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 81.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 87.5% to PSA at 78.5%. Two 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.

On-time performance by carrier on MCI to PHL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airwaysthin sample	58	87.5%	105 min	3.45%	A−
American Airlines (this page)	530	81.7%	117 min	0.75%	B+
PSA Airlinesthin sample	315	78.5%	99 min	8.25%	B−

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 14 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–8am199 flights89.2%
8am–11am9 flights—
11am–2pm188 flights76.1%
2pm–5pm93 flights75.3%
5pm–8pm41 flights82.9%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.2% of the time, against 75.3% for the afternoon window. That is 14 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 199 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on MCI to PHL through the year

Jul–Sep 2025191 flights78.6%
Oct–Dec 2025129 flights72.9%
Apr–Jun 2026210 flights90.0%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 81.7% on time across 530 flights.

American on MCI to PHL did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 90.0% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 72.9%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 177 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 91.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 72.7%. 19 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 46% of the 11,000 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.

Carrier
46%
Late-arriving aircraft
42%
National Airspace System
11%
Extreme weather
2%

42% 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 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 26 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 11,237 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, 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 5,125 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.75%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

8.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 1,038 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 74.2% on time across 533 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 530 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 MCI to PHL

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 530 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 81.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 526 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures