Carrier route record
AAPHL→PBI
American Airlines · Philadelphia to West Palm Beach
- Flights
- 1,178
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 81%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHL to PBI lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,178 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,147 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.29%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
75.3%
Every carrier on PHL to PBI, 1,451 flights
These figures cover 1,178 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on PHL to PBI
American flew 1,178 of the 1,451 flights on PHL to PBI, most of the route. Its 78.0% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 75.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 78.0% to Frontier at 62.9%. 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) | 1,178 | 78.0% | 75 min | 2.29% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 14 | 69.2% | 56 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 259 | 62.9% | 69 min | 4.25% | D− |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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.
- 5am–8am154 flights92.7%
- 8am–11am323 flights81.0%
- 11am–2pm189 flights77.4%
- 2pm–5pm172 flights69.5%
- 5pm–8pm224 flights75.6%
- 8pm–5am116 flights68.2%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.7% of the time, against 68.2% for the overnight 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 323 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHL to PBI through the year
May is the best month on the calendar at 88.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 72.8%, a spread of 14 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on PHL to PBI runs when it is late
American on PHL to PBI often beats the schedule: 460 of 1,147 completed flights, 40%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 252 late arrivals split 74 under half an hour, 76 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 102 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early460 flights40.1%
- Within 15 min435 flights37.9%
- 15–29 min late74 flights6.5%
- 30–59 min late76 flights6.6%
- 1–2 hours late52 flights4.5%
- 2+ hours late50 flights4.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,147 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
53 of 247 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. In the other direction, 58 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at PBI.
The worst days
Worst days for American on PHL to PBI
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 January 2026, 6 hours 24 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 January 2026 | 6 hours 24 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 13 June 2026 | 6 hours 15 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 13 June 2026 | 4 hours 49 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 24 October 2025 | 4 hours 29 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 January 2026 | 4 hours 28 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. The split is drawn from 18,851 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 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.34%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.3% on time across 1,177 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,178 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 October 66.4%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of October before you think about anything else. 1,147 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to PBI, every carrier
- American on PBI to PHL, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to PBI62.9%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Palm Beach International (PBI) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.