Route reliability record
PHL→ORF
Philadelphia to Norfolk
- Flights
- 854
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 212 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 854 PHL to ORF flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly PHL to ORF: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.7%, against 72.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 53 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 821 completed flights
Avg delay
98 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.75%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
71.2% on time across 757 flights
These figures cover 854 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHL to ORF
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 | 97 | 78.5% | 115 min | 4.12% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 757 | 71.2% | 97 min | 3.70% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on PHL to ORF
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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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 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am103 flights83.2%
- 11am–2pm37 flights79.4%
- 2pm–5pm173 flights79.6%
- 5pm–8pm420 flights68.1%
- 8pm–5am121 flights62.7%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.7% on time, against 83.2% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 420 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHL to ORF by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On PHL to ORF, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 83.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 62.7%, a wide gap of 20.5 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am83.2%
- 11am–2pm79.4%
- 2–5pm79.6%
- 5–8pm68.1%
- 8pm–5am62.7%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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 53.4% on time, 30 points below May, the best at 83.3%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 101 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 62.1%, a spread of 20 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 23,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 22,571 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 83.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.75%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
14.7% 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.
At 212 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.2% on time across 854 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. 854 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 ORF after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.75% 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. 821 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to ORF questions
How often is PHL to ORF delayed?
Roughly 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 28.0% of the 854 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is PHL to ORF compared with the rest of the country?
72.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 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 ORF?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 83.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 62.7%, 21 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 ORF?
July is the weakest month at 53.4% on time, compared with 83.3% in May. Across the year that is 30 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
- ORF to PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- PHL to ATL, a related route78.0%
- ATL to ORF, a related route78.7%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record78.5%
- PSA Airlines on-time record71.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PHL to ORF and ORF 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.