Carrier route record
AAPBI→PHL
American Airlines · West Palm Beach to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,268
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 82%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PBI to PHL lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About 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 1,268 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PBI 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
80.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,238 completed flights
Avg delay
121 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.29%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.0%
Every carrier on PBI to PHL, 1,552 flights
These figures cover 1,268 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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 PBI to PHL
American flew 1,268 of the 1,552 flights on PBI to PHL, most of the route. Its 80.9% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 80.9% to Frontier at 58.9%. 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) | 1,268 | 80.9% | 121 min | 2.29% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 14 | 64.3% | 103 min | 0.00% | D+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 270 | 58.9% | 102 min | 2.59% | D |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on PBI to PHL
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 30 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–8am355 flights97.4%
- 8am–11am144 flights87.3%
- 11am–2pm308 flights76.1%
- 2pm–5pm229 flights71.7%
- 5pm–8pm228 flights67.4%
- 8pm–5am4 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 97.4% of the time, against 67.4% for the evening window. That is 30 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 355 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PBI to PHL through the year
July is the worst month at 69.0% on time, 20 points below May, the best at 89.2%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.1%. 12 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 45% of the 29,000 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%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
45% 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 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 28,596 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 10,000 of the 29,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.29% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
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. 9.2% 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 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. 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 76.2% on time across 1,269 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,268 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 PBI to PHL
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 89.2% on time and July 69.0%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,238 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
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.