Carrier route record
AAPHL→IAH
American Airlines · Philadelphia to Houston
- Flights
- 724
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 39%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHL to IAH lands a B−, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 724 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate American on PHL to IAH from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 700 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.18%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
81.7%
Every carrier on PHL to IAH, 1,878 flights
These figures cover 724 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on PHL to IAH
American flew 724 of the 1,878 flights on PHL to IAH, about 39% of it. Its 78.1% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 85.7% to Frontier at 67.6%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 954 | 85.7% | 88 min | 1.05% | A |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 36 | 83.3% | 140 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 724 | 78.1% | 86 min | 3.18% | B− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 92 | 77.3% | 77 min | 2.17% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 72 | 67.6% | 64 min | 1.39% | C |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am286 flights83.3%
- 11am–2pm104 flights75.8%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm217 flights78.0%
- 8pm–5am117 flights67.3%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 83.3% of the time, against 67.3% for the overnight window. That is 16 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 286 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHL to IAH through the year
Delays peak in September, when the on-time rate falls to 69.6%. February is the strongest month at 89.8%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 20 points. July was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.2%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on PHL to IAH runs when it is late
American on PHL to IAH often beats the schedule: 310 of 700 completed flights, 44%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 153 late arrivals split 43 under half an hour, 46 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 64 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early310 flights44.3%
- Within 15 min237 flights33.9%
- 15–29 min late43 flights6.1%
- 30–59 min late46 flights6.6%
- 1–2 hours late37 flights5.3%
- 2+ hours late27 flights3.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 700 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 192 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 75 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 36 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at IAH.
The worst days
Worst days for American on PHL to IAH
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 June 2026, 12 hours 43 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 June 2026 | 12 hours 43 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 7 March 2026 | 11 hours 43 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 29 May 2026 | 9 hours 37 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 August 2026 | 9 hours 30 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 September 2025 | 7 hours 15 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 20%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. Across 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 13,132 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 83.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.18%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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 costs
9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,325 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.
The return leg runs 77.6% on time across 724 flights, within half a point 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. 724 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 IAH
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.18% 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. 700 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to IAH, every carrier
- American on IAH to PHL, the return leg
- United Airlines on PHL to IAH85.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.