Carrier route record
AAPHL→RSW
American Airlines · Philadelphia to Fort Myers
- Flights
- 1,042
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 78%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHL to RSW sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,042 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on PHL to RSW runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 44 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,011 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.69%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.2%
Every carrier on PHL to RSW, 1,344 flights
These figures cover 1,042 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% 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 RSW
American flew 1,042 of the 1,344 flights on PHL to RSW, most of the route. Its 73.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 72.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 73.2% to Frontier at 68.9%. One 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) | 1,042 | 73.2% | 85 min | 2.69% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 302 | 68.9% | 67 min | 4.30% | 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 11 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–8am18 flights—
- 8am–11am402 flights78.3%
- 11am–2pm213 flights72.8%
- 2pm–5pm171 flights67.3%
- 5pm–8pm152 flights67.4%
- 8pm–5am86 flights71.4%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 78.3% of the time, against 67.3% for the afternoon window. That is 11 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 402 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHL to RSW through the year
July is the worst month at 63.2% on time, 21 points below May, the best at 83.8%. 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 120 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.1%. 25 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 56% of the 23,000 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.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
56% 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 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 40 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 23,059 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 78.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.69%, 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.6% 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 993 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 74.1% on time across 1,041 flights, within about a point 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. 1,042 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on PHL to RSW
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,042 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 73.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,011 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to RSW, every carrier
- American on RSW to PHL, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to RSW68.9%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.