Route reliability record
PHL→PBI
Philadelphia to West Palm Beach
- Flights
- 1,553
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 951 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 1,553 PHL to PBI flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly PHL to PBI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.9%, against 74.4% 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
74.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,509 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.58%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
76.2% on time across 1,269 flights
These figures cover 1,553 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
Which airline is most reliable on PHL to PBI
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,269 | 76.2% | 81 min | 2.29% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 14 | 69.2% | 56 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 270 | 66.0% | 67 min | 4.07% | C− |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Philadelphia to West Palm Beach
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHL → PBIPhiladelphia to West Palm Beach | American Airlines | 74.5% | 76.2% | 2.29% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. PHL → FLLPhiladelphia to Fort Lauderdale | American Airlines | 73.9% | 75.9% | 2.62% | 8am–11am, Wed | AA 1864 19:00 |
| 3. PHL → FLLPhiladelphia to Fort Lauderdale | Frontier Airlines | 71.8% | 73.1% | 1.73% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. PHL → FLLPhiladelphia to Fort Lauderdale | JetBlue Airways | 68.6% | 70.1% | 2.08% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 5. PHL → FLLPhiladelphia to Fort Lauderdale | Spirit Airlines | 65.9% | 69.5% | 5.22% | 5am–8am, 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 21 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–8am192 flights88.8%
- 8am–11am388 flights77.9%
- 11am–2pm239 flights75.2%
- 2pm–5pm294 flights68.3%
- 5pm–8pm330 flights68.2%
- 8pm–5am110 flights69.7%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.8% of the time, against 68.2% for the evening window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 388 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 62.9% on time, 26 points below May, the best at 89.1%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 163 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Saturday the weakest at 68.8%. 16 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 30,000 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
- 24%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 3%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 30,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 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 29,872 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 88.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.58%, 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. 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 951 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 77.0% on time across 1,552 flights, within 3 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 1,553 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 PBI 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. May runs 89.1% on time and July 62.9%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,509 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to PBI questions
How often is PHL to PBI 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 25.6% of the 1,553 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 PBI compared with the rest of the country?
74.4% 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 PBI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.2%, 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 PBI?
July is the weakest month at 62.9% on time, compared with 89.1% in May. Across the year that is 26 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
- PBI to PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- American Airlines on PHL to PBI76.2%
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to PBI66.0%
- PHL to ATL, a related route79.2%
- ATL to PBI, a related route75.7%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- American Airlines on-time record76.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record69.2%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record66.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PHL to PBI and PBI 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.