Route reliability record
PHL→JAX
Philadelphia to Jacksonville
- Flights
- 1,554
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 742 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About 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 1,554 PHL to JAX flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 473 at 81.7% on time.
Best time to fly PHL to JAX: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.5%, against 76.6% 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
76.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,510 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.64%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
81.7% on time across 473 flights
These figures cover 1,554 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.3% 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
Which airline is most reliable on PHL to JAX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. PSA Airlines arrives on time 81.7% of the time; American Airlines manages 74.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 744 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 72 | 91.7% | 101 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlines | 473 | 81.7% | 117 min | 3.81% | B− |
| American Airlines | 744 | 74.7% | 70 min | 2.02% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 265 | 68.9% | 75 min | 3.02% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 3.8% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Philadelphia to Jacksonville
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHL → JAXPhiladelphia to Jacksonville | PSA Airlines | 78.6% | 81.7% | 3.81% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. PHL → JAXPhiladelphia to Jacksonville | American Airlines | 73.2% | 74.7% | 2.02% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 19 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am10 flights—
- 8am–11am405 flights87.1%
- 11am–2pm295 flights79.6%
- 2pm–5pm353 flights73.3%
- 5pm–8pm425 flights68.1%
- 8pm–5am66 flights70.3%
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 87.1% of the time, against 68.1% for the evening window. That is 19 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 425 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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 65.6% on time, 18 points below March, the best at 83.6%. 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 162 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 71.4%. 14 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 53% of the 29,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
53% 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 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 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 29,219 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 87.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.64%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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. 10.3% 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 742 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 78.5% on time across 1,553 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,554 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 JAX after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 83.6% on time and July 65.6%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,510 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to JAX questions
How often is PHL to JAX delayed?
About 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 23.4% of the 1,554 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHL to JAX?
PSA Airlines leads at 81.7% on time across 473 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 74.7%, a gap of 7 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PHL to JAX?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.1%, 19 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 JAX?
July is the weakest month at 65.6% on time, compared with 83.6% in March. Across the year that is 18 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
- JAX to PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on PHL to JAX81.7%
- American Airlines on PHL to JAX74.7%
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to JAX68.9%
- PHL to ATL, a related route79.2%
- ATL to JAX, a related route75.5%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record91.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record81.7%
- American Airlines on-time record74.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PHL to JAX and JAX 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.