Route reliability record
PHL→CVG
Philadelphia to Cincinnati
- Flights
- 1,184
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 507 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route 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 an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,184 PHL to CVG flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly PHL to CVG: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.7%, against 76.9% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,145 completed flights
Avg delay
93 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.04%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
74.0% on time across 998 flights
These figures cover 1,184 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.2% 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
Which airline is most reliable on PHL to CVG
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 | 128 | 94.5% | 105 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 58 | 86.0% | 75 min | 1.72% | A |
| PSA Airlines | 998 | 74.0% | 93 min | 3.51% | C− |
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 22 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–11am287 flights89.3%
- 11am–2pm285 flights78.9%
- 2pm–5pm153 flights75.8%
- 5pm–8pm362 flights67.1%
- 8pm–5am97 flights71.1%
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 89.3% of the time, against 67.1% for the evening window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 362 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 39 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.
July is the worst month at 51.5% on time, 39 points below April, the best at 90.9%. 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 137 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.7% on time and Thursday the weakest at 71.5%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 25,000 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.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
43% 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 25,000 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 24,548 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, 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 8,989 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.04%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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 actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.2% 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 507 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 1,185 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 1,184 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 CVG after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.04% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,145 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to CVG questions
How often is PHL to CVG delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.1% of the 1,184 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is PHL to CVG compared with the rest of the country?
76.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PHL to CVG?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 89.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.1%, 22 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 July delays on PHL to CVG?
July is the weakest month at 51.5% on time, compared with 90.9% in April. Across the year that is 39 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
- CVG to PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on PHL to CVG94.5%
- PSA Airlines on PHL to CVG74.0%
- PHL to ATL, a related route79.2%
- ORD to CVG, a related route72.2%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record94.5%
- American Airlines on-time record86.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record74.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PHL to CVG and CVG to PHL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.