Route reliability record
PHL→MCI
Philadelphia to Kansas City
- Flights
- 905
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,038 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 905 PHL to MCI flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly PHL to MCI: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.7%, against 74.7% 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
74.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 873 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.20%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
74.2% on time across 533 flights
These figures cover 905 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.5% 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 MCI
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 | 58 | 87.7% | 56 min | 1.72% | A |
| American Airlines | 533 | 74.2% | 77 min | 0.56% | C+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 314 | 72.9% | 86 min | 7.96% | 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 19 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–11am239 flights80.1%
- 11am–2pm111 flights84.5%
- 2pm–5pm216 flights74.8%
- 5pm–8pm251 flights65.8%
- 8pm–5am88 flights71.2%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 84.5% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 65.8%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 251 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 34 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.
December is the weak month at 53.7% on time, against 87.9% in March. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.7% on time and Thursday the weakest at 63.0%. 21 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 49% of the 18,000 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.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% 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 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 17,539 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.20%, against 1.81% 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 actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.5% 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 1,038 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 81.0% on time across 903 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. 905 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MCI after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.20% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 873 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to MCI questions
How often is PHL to MCI 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 25.3% of the 905 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is PHL to MCI compared with the rest of the country?
74.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PHL to MCI?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 84.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.8%, 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 December delays on PHL to MCI?
December is the weakest month at 53.7% on time, compared with 87.9% in March. Across the year that is 34 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
- MCI to PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- American Airlines on PHL to MCI74.2%
- PSA Airlines on PHL to MCI72.9%
- PHL to ATL, a related route79.2%
- DEN to MCI, a related route75.5%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record87.7%
- American Airlines on-time record74.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record72.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PHL to MCI and MCI 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.