Carrier route record
AAMIA→PHL
American Airlines · Miami to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 2,569
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 81%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on MIA to PHL lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,569 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on MIA 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
76.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,511 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.10%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.8%
Every carrier on MIA to PHL, 3,158 flights
These figures cover 2,569 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% 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 MIA to PHL
American flew 2,569 of the 3,158 flights on MIA to PHL, most of the route. Its 76.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 76.4% to Frontier at 72.5%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,569 | 76.4% | 79 min | 2.10% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 236 | 73.9% | 66 min | 4.24% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 353 | 72.5% | 91 min | 2.27% | C |
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 21 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–8am393 flights91.5%
- 8am–11am383 flights86.5%
- 11am–2pm65 flights76.9%
- 2pm–5pm554 flights70.1%
- 5pm–8pm655 flights70.8%
- 8pm–5am519 flights70.8%
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 91.5% of the time, against 70.1% for the afternoon window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 655 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on MIA to PHL through the year
July is the worst month at 66.1% on time, 15 points below October, the best at 81.2%. 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 263 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 80.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.0%. 16 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 45% of the 47,000 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.
- 45%Carrier
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
35% 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 47,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 46,767 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, 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 21,000 of the 47,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
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. 9.0% 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 1,013 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. 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 78.8% on time across 2,569 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 2,569 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on MIA to PHL
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 81.2% on time and July 66.1%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,511 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MIA to PHL, every carrier
- American on PHL to MIA, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on MIA to PHL73.9%
- Frontier Airlines on MIA to PHL72.5%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.