Carrier route record

AAORD→PHL

American Airlines · Chicago to Philadelphia

Flights: 2,926
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 59%
Carriers: 4

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

American on ORD to PHL carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,926 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on ORD to PHL runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 65 extra late arrivals.

On time

71.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,813 completed flights

Avg delay

100 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.76%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

71.2%

Every carrier on ORD to PHL, 4,918 flights

These figures cover 2,926 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.5% 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 ORD to PHL

American flew 2,926 of the 4,918 flights on ORD to PHL, most of the route. Its 71.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 71.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 81.5% to Frontier at 60.4%. 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 ORD to PHL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airwaysthin sample	27	81.5%	46 min	0.00%	B+
United Airlines	1,776	72.2%	78 min	1.30%	C
American Airlines (this page)	2,926	71.1%	100 min	3.76%	C−
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	189	60.4%	139 min	3.70%	D−

Flight by flight

American flight numbers on ORD to PHL

AA 284014:5068.5% · 319 flights

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 27 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–8am536 flights86.2%
8am–11am525 flights76.5%
11am–2pm464 flights72.9%
2pm–5pm514 flights66.7%
5pm–8pm549 flights59.4%
8pm–5am338 flights61.7%

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.4% on time, against 86.2% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 549 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on ORD to PHL through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, July worst

July is the worst month at 57.7% on time, 23 points below February, the best at 80.6%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 279 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 75.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 65.0%. 10 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 81,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
50%
Carrier
31%
National Airspace System
14%
Extreme weather
5%
Security
0%

50% 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 81,000 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 81,016 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 86.2% on time here.

Cancellations run at 3.76%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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 costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.5% 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 678 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 73.2% on time across 2,923 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 2,926 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 ORD to PHL

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.76% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 2,813 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