Route reliability record
PHL→SAN
Philadelphia to San Diego
- Flights
- 1,047
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,370 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. About 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 1,047 PHL to SAN flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly PHL to SAN: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.8% of the time and Saturday flights 81.2%, against 78.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
78.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,022 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.53%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
78.5% on time across 1,047 flights
These figures cover 1,047 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHL to SAN
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 | 1,047 | 78.5% | 70 min | 1.53% | B |
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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 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am364 flights88.8%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm326 flights74.8%
- 5pm–8pm313 flights69.9%
- 8pm–5am44 flights80.5%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.8% of the time, against 69.9% for the evening window. That is 19 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 364 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHL to SAN 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 SAN, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 88.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 69.9%, a wide gap of 18.9 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am88.8%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm74.8%
- 5–8pm69.9%
- 8pm–5am80.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
August is the worst month at 69.6% on time, 20 points below March, 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. March was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 74.8%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 15,000 reported delay minutes.
- 32%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 12%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 12% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 15,395 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 88.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.53% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.86%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.7% 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.
At 2,370 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 87.0% on time across 1,047 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,047 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 SAN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,047 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 78.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,022 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to SAN questions
How often is PHL to SAN delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.5% of the 1,047 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is PHL to SAN compared with the rest of the country?
78.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of about a point in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PHL to SAN?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 88.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.9%, 19 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 August delays on PHL to SAN?
August is the weakest month at 69.6% on time, compared with 89.1% in March. Across the year that is 20 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
- SAN to PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- PHL to ATL, a related route78.0%
- SFO to SAN, a related route62.2%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- American Airlines on-time record78.5%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. PHL to SAN and SAN 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.