Carrier route record
AAPHL→ATL
American Airlines · Philadelphia to Atlanta
- Flights
- 594
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 10%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHL to ATL sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 594 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 3,029 at 84.9% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 84.9% on time across 3,029 flights.
Key figures
On time
68.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 580 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.85%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.2%
Every carrier on PHL to ATL, 5,713 flights
These figures cover 594 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% 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 PHL to ATL
American flew 594 of the 5,713 flights on PHL to ATL, about 10% of it. Its 68.3% on time is 11 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 90.1% to Spirit at 60.7%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 84.9% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 66.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,008 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 156 | 90.1% | 93 min | 3.21% | A− |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,029 | 84.9% | 59 min | 2.48% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 834 | 82.1% | 68 min | 4.08% | B− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 594 | 68.3% | 70 min | 1.85% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,008 | 66.4% | 71 min | 2.78% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 92 | 60.7% | 66 min | 3.26% | D− |
PSA Airlines cancels 4.1% 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.
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 19 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am2 flights—
- 8am–11am42 flights73.8%
- 11am–2pm178 flights69.9%
- 2pm–5pm80 flights57.1%
- 5pm–8pm195 flights64.7%
- 8pm–5am97 flights78.1%
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is the strongest at 78.1% on time. The full set of windows spans 21 points.
Across the year
American on PHL to ATL through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025229 flights67.9%
- Oct–Dec 2025122 flights62.0%
- Jan–Mar 202643 flights73.8%
- Apr–Jun 2026200 flights71.4%
Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 68.3% on time across 594 flights.
American on PHL to ATL did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 73.8% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 62.0%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 149 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 61.2%. 17 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 53% of the 13,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
53% 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 13,000 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 12,845 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.51%.
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. 11.4% 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 666 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 78.1% on time across 592 flights, 10 points above 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 594 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking American on PHL to ATL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 594 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 68.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 580 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to ATL, every carrier
- American on ATL to PHL, the return leg
- Republic Airways on PHL to ATL90.1%
- Delta Air Lines on PHL to ATL84.9%
- PSA Airlines on PHL to ATL82.1%
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to ATL66.4%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.