Carrier route record
AAPHL→IAH
American Airlines · Philadelphia to Houston
- Flights
- 714
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 39%
- 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 IAH 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 an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 714 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
74.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 692 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.08%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
80.1%
Every carrier on PHL to IAH, 1,829 flights
These figures cover 714 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% 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 IAH
American flew 714 of the 1,829 flights on PHL to IAH, about 39% of it. Its 74.1% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 86.9% to Spirit at 60.0%. Four 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 | 891 | 86.9% | 81 min | 1.01% | A |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 20 | 80.0% | 89 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 92 | 77.3% | 77 min | 2.17% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 714 | 74.1% | 87 min | 3.08% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 70 | 68.1% | 60 min | 1.43% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 42 | 60.0% | 79 min | 4.76% | D− |
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–11am284 flights82.4%
- 11am–2pm97 flights62.1%
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm276 flights71.3%
- 8pm–5am56 flights65.4%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 62.1% on time against 82.4% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 284 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHL to IAH through the year
August is the worst month at 56.6% on time, 33 points below February, the best at 89.8%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 83 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.7%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 16,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
42% 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 16,000 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 15,582 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 82.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.08%, 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.3% 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 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. 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 78.2% on time across 717 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 714 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 3.08% 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. 692 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 IAH86.9%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.