Carrier route record
AAPHL→SFO
American Airlines · Philadelphia to San Francisco
- Flights
- 1,335
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 64%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHL to SFO 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 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,335 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on PHL to SFO runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 41 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,310 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
71.9%
Every carrier on PHL to SFO, 2,085 flights
These figures cover 1,335 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.5% 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 SFO
American flew 1,335 of the 2,085 flights on PHL to SFO, most of the route. Its 73.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 71.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 73.2% to United at 69.7%.
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) | 1,335 | 73.2% | 80 min | 1.65% | C |
| United Airlines | 750 | 69.7% | 81 min | 0.53% | C+ |
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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 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am56 flights92.7%
- 8am–11am357 flights81.5%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm363 flights74.2%
- 5pm–8pm452 flights62.6%
- 8pm–5am107 flights76.5%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.6% on time, against 92.7% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 452 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHL to SFO through the year
June is the worst month at 59.7% on time, 30 points below November, the best at 89.8%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 152 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 62.8%, a spread of 18 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on PHL to SFO runs when it is late
American on PHL to SFO often beats the schedule: 417 of 1,310 completed flights, 32%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 351 late arrivals split 95 under half an hour, 106 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 150 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early417 flights31.8%
- Within 15 min542 flights41.4%
- 15–29 min late95 flights7.3%
- 30–59 min late106 flights8.1%
- 1–2 hours late89 flights6.8%
- 2+ hours late61 flights4.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,310 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
70 of 328 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. In the other direction, 93 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 SFO.
The worst days
Worst days for American on PHL to SFO
The latest arrival of the period was on 22 December 2025, 13 hours 42 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across December, March and July, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 22 December 2025 | 13 hours 42 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 11 March 2026 | 12 hours 29 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 28 July 2026 | 10 hours 4 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 5 July 2026 | 9 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 December 2025 | 7 hours 18 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
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 28,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%National Airspace System
- 28%Carrier
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 14% 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 2.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 27,903 reported delay minutes.
37% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 10,000 minutes out of 28,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.65% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
11.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 2,522 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 85.4% on time across 1,333 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,335 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 SFO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 89.8% on time and June 59.7%, a swing of 30 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,310 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to SFO, every carrier
- American on SFO to PHL, the return leg
- United Airlines on PHL to SFO69.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.