Carrier route record
AAPHL→PBI
American Airlines · Philadelphia to West Palm Beach
- Flights
- 1,269
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 82%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHL to PBI 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,269 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHL to PBI from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,237 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.29%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.4%
Every carrier on PHL to PBI, 1,553 flights
These figures cover 1,269 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
American against every carrier on PHL to PBI
American flew 1,269 of the 1,553 flights on PHL to PBI, most of the route. Its 76.2% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 76.2% to Frontier at 66.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 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− |
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 25 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–8am154 flights92.7%
- 8am–11am349 flights80.2%
- 11am–2pm167 flights79.4%
- 2pm–5pm230 flights67.6%
- 5pm–8pm259 flights69.2%
- 8pm–5am110 flights69.7%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.7% of the time, against 67.6% for the afternoon window. That is 25 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 349 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHL to PBI through the year
August is the worst month at 58.9% on time, 29 points below May, the best at 88.3%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.9% on time and Saturday the weakest at 70.7%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 24,000 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.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% 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 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 23,753 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 92.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.29% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.24%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here 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 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.9% on time across 1,268 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,269 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on PHL to PBI
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 88.3% on time and August 58.9%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,237 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.