Carrier route record
AAPHL→SJU
American Airlines · Philadelphia to San Juan
- Flights
- 701
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 37%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHL to SJU sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 701 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on PHL to SJU runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 94 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 683 completed flights
Avg delay
98 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.00%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
63.1%
Every carrier on PHL to SJU, 1,879 flights
These figures cover 701 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.2% 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 SJU
American flew 701 of the 1,879 flights on PHL to SJU, about 37% of it. Its 68.2% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 63.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 78.1% to Frontier at 57.9%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 97 | 78.1% | 138 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 701 | 68.2% | 98 min | 2.00% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 216 | 59.8% | 69 min | 7.87% | D− |
| Frontier Airlines | 865 | 57.9% | 75 min | 3.35% | D− |
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 34 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–8am—
- 8am–11am241 flights82.1%
- 11am–2pm135 flights70.7%
- 2pm–5pm19 flights—
- 5pm–8pm253 flights59.8%
- 8pm–5am53 flights48.1%
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 48.1% on time, against 82.1% for the 8am–11am 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 253 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHL to SJU through the year
July is the worst month at 32.3% on time, 55 points below April, the best at 87.6%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 89 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 74.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.6%. 13 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. Carrier accounts for 51% of the 21,000 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.
- 51%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 11,000 of the 21,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 21,161 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 82.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.00% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.57%.
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. 13.2% 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.
At 1,576 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 79.4% on time across 701 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 701 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 SJU
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 701 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 68.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 683 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to SJU, every carrier
- American on SJU to PHL, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on PHL to SJU59.8%
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to SJU57.9%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Luis Munoz Marin International (SJU) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.