Carrier route record
AAPHL→CHS
American Airlines · Philadelphia to Charleston
- Flights
- 735
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 66%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHL to CHS lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly 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 735 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHL to CHS from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 722 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.63%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.5%
Every carrier on PHL to CHS, 1,109 flights
These figures cover 735 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% 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 CHS
American flew 735 of the 1,109 flights on PHL to CHS, most of the route. Its 77.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 91.2% to Frontier at 76.7%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 34 | 91.2% | 43 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 735 | 77.1% | 73 min | 1.63% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 266 | 76.8% | 96 min | 4.51% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 74 | 76.7% | 71 min | 1.35% | B |
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 20 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–8am—
- 8am–11am228 flights87.2%
- 11am–2pm156 flights73.2%
- 2pm–5pm218 flights75.0%
- 5pm–8pm132 flights67.7%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.2% of the time, against 67.7% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 228 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHL to CHS through the year
August is the worst month at 68.5% on time, 21 points below March, the best at 89.7%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 107 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 86.2% on time and Saturday the weakest at 70.2%. 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 64% of the 12,000 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.
- 64%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
64% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 29 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 12,057 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.63% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
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. 9.7% 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 550 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 79.4% on time across 736 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 735 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 CHS
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 735 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 77.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 722 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to CHS, every carrier
- American on CHS to PHL, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on PHL to CHS76.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.