Carrier route record
AAPHL→DEN
American Airlines · Philadelphia to Denver
- Flights
- 877
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 29%
- 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 DEN sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 877 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 953 at 83.9% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on PHL to DEN runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 43 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 862 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.60%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.9%
Every carrier on PHL to DEN, 3,005 flights
These figures cover 877 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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 PHL to DEN
American flew 877 of the 3,005 flights on PHL to DEN, about 29% of it. Its 73.3% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 83.9% to Frontier at 68.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 83.9% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 69.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 879 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 953 | 83.9% | 92 min | 0.84% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 877 | 73.3% | 66 min | 1.60% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 879 | 69.0% | 57 min | 0.80% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 296 | 68.4% | 112 min | 1.69% | C |
The spread between United and Southwest is 15 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 15 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 19 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am270 flights79.9%
- 11am–2pm199 flights79.3%
- 2pm–5pm16 flights—
- 5pm–8pm243 flights61.2%
- 8pm–5am149 flights71.4%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.2% on time, against 79.9% for the 8am–11am 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 270 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHL to DEN through the year
December is the weak month at 51.6% on time, against 85.7% in November. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. June was the busiest month here, with 111 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.4%. 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 47% of the 15,000 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.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% 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 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 15,064 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 79.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.60% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
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. 10.2% 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.
At 1,558 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.8% on time across 877 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 877 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 DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 877 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 73.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 862 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to DEN, every carrier
- American on DEN to PHL, the return leg
- United Airlines on PHL to DEN83.9%
- Southwest Airlines on PHL to DEN69.0%
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to DEN68.4%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) 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.