Route reliability record
MIA→PHL
Miami to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 3,289
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,013 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 3,289 MIA to PHL flights, of which American Airlines flew 2,727 at 76.1% on time.
Best time to fly MIA to PHL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.4%, against 75.1% 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
75.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,176 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.34%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
76.1% on time across 2,727 flights
These figures cover 3,289 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MIA to PHL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 76.1% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 68.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 368 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 2,727 | 76.1% | 76 min | 3.19% | B− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 194 | 72.8% | 62 min | 5.15% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 368 | 68.7% | 87 min | 3.53% | C− |
Frontier Airlines cancels 3.5% 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Miami to Philadelphia
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. FLL → PHLFort Lauderdale to Philadelphia | American Airlines | 75.2% | 77.4% | 2.83% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. MIA → PHLMiami to Philadelphia | American Airlines | 73.7% | 76.1% | 3.19% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. FLL → PHLFort Lauderdale to Philadelphia | Spirit Airlines | 67.6% | 71.3% | 5.24% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. FLL → PHLFort Lauderdale to Philadelphia | JetBlue Airways | 66.7% | 69.0% | 3.28% | 8am–11am, Wed | B6 376 20:59 |
| 5. MIA → PHLMiami to Philadelphia | Frontier Airlines | 66.3% | 68.7% | 3.53% | 11am–2pm, 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 25 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am503 flights92.1%
- 8am–11am431 flights87.3%
- 11am–2pm157 flights76.7%
- 2pm–5pm736 flights69.4%
- 5pm–8pm700 flights69.1%
- 8pm–5am762 flights67.1%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.1% of the time, against 67.1% for the overnight window. That is 25 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 762 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MIA 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 MIA to PHL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 67.1%, a wide gap of 25.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.1%
- 8–11am87.3%
- 11am–2pm76.7%
- 2–5pm69.4%
- 5–8pm69.1%
- 8pm–5am67.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 64.6% on time, 17 points below October, the best at 81.9%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 310 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.9%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 61,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 61,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 60,699 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 22,000 of the 61,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.34%, against 1.89% 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
9.9% 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 1,013 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 77.0% on time across 3,286 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 3,289 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 3.34% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 3,176 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MIA to PHL questions
How often is MIA to PHL delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.9% of the 3,289 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MIA to PHL?
American Airlines leads at 76.1% on time across 2,727 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 68.7%, a gap of 7 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 MIA to PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 67.1%, 25 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 MIA to PHL?
July is the weakest month at 64.6% on time, compared with 81.9% in October. Across the year that is 17 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 MIA — the return legseparate record
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- American Airlines on MIA to PHL76.1%
- Spirit Airlines on MIA to PHL72.8%
- Frontier Airlines on MIA to PHL68.7%
- MIA to ATL, a related route74.2%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.6%
- MIA to LGA, a related route67.4%
- American Airlines on-time record76.1%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record72.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record68.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MIA to PHL and PHL to MIA 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.