Route reliability record
PBI→PHL
West Palm Beach to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,450
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 951 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 1,450 PBI to PHL flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly PBI to PHL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 97.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.4%, against 78.0% 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
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,416 completed flights
Avg delay
113 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.34%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
82.3% on time across 1,177 flights
These figures cover 1,450 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PBI 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 | 1,177 | 82.3% | 116 min | 2.29% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 14 | 64.3% | 103 min | 0.00% | D+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 259 | 58.7% | 107 min | 2.70% | D |
Flight by flight
Flights on PBI to PHL
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly West Palm Beach 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PBI → PHLWest Palm Beach to Philadelphia | American Airlines | 80.4% | 82.3% | 2.29% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2642 07:00 |
| 2. FLL → PHLFort Lauderdale to Philadelphia | American Airlines | 75.2% | 77.4% | 2.83% | 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. FLL → PHLFort Lauderdale to Philadelphia | Frontier Airlines | 60.0% | 62.3% | 3.65% | 8am–11am, 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 39 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am325 flights97.8%
- 8am–11am215 flights81.6%
- 11am–2pm350 flights75.6%
- 2pm–5pm274 flights65.4%
- 5pm–8pm202 flights71.6%
- 8pm–5am84 flights58.5%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.5% on time, against 97.8% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 350 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PBI 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 PBI to PHL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 97.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 58.5%, a wide gap of 39.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am97.8%
- 8–11am81.6%
- 11am–2pm75.6%
- 2–5pm65.4%
- 5–8pm71.6%
- 8pm–5am58.5%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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.
June is the worst month at 70.2% on time, 18 points below May, the best at 88.4%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 163 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 73.3%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 35,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
47% 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 8 to one. The split is drawn from 35,214 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 2.34% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.0% 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 951 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 75.3% on time across 1,451 flights, within 3 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 1,450 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. May runs 88.4% on time and June 70.2%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,416 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PBI to PHL questions
How often is PBI to PHL delayed?
Roughly 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 22.0% of the 1,450 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is PBI to PHL compared with the rest of the country?
78.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PBI to PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 97.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 58.5%, 39 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 June delays on PBI to PHL?
June is the weakest month at 70.2% on time, compared with 88.4% in May. Across the year that is 18 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 PBI — the return legseparate record
- Palm Beach International (PBI) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- American Airlines on PBI to PHL82.3%
- Frontier Airlines on PBI to PHL58.7%
- PBI to ATL, a related route82.7%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.6%
- PBI to EWR, a related route75.8%
- American Airlines on-time record82.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record64.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record58.7%
- 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. PBI to PHL and PHL to PBI are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed PBI to PHL’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.