Route reliability record
PHL→MEM
Philadelphia to Memphis
- Flights
- 759
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 875 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 759 PHL to MEM flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly PHL to MEM: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.0%, against 80.2% 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
80.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 734 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.90%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
78.8% on time across 551 flights
These figures cover 759 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% 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 MEM
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 | 208 | 84.0% | 87 min | 3.85% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 551 | 78.8% | 77 min | 2.54% | B |
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 15 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–11am321 flights82.5%
- 11am–2pm63 flights85.7%
- 2pm–5pm185 flights83.1%
- 5pm–8pm76 flights72.9%
- 8pm–5am114 flights70.4%
Scale runs 60% 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 85.7% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 70.4%. 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 321 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 67.4% on time, against 90.2% in February. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 88 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 75.0%. 9 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 52% of the 11,000 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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
52% 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 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 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 11,474 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.90%, 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 actually costs
8.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 875 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 82.4% on time across 758 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 759 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 MEM after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.90% 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. 734 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to MEM questions
How often is PHL to MEM delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.8% of the 759 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 MEM compared with the rest of the country?
80.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PHL to MEM?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 85.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 70.4%, 15 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 MEM?
December is the weakest month at 67.4% on time, compared with 90.2% in February. Across the year that is 23 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
- MEM to PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on PHL to MEM84.0%
- PSA Airlines on PHL to MEM78.8%
- PHL to ATL, a related route79.2%
- ATL to MEM, a related route82.3%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record84.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record78.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PHL to MEM and MEM to PHL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed PHL to MEM’s on-time badge on your site
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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.