Carrier route record
AAPHL→SJU
American Airlines · Philadelphia to San Juan
- Flights
- 763
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 38%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 763 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on PHL to SJU runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 59 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 745 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.97%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
63.3%
Every carrier on PHL to SJU, 1,992 flights
These figures cover 763 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.9% 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 SJU
American flew 763 of the 1,992 flights on PHL to SJU, about 38% of it. Its 71.4% on time is 8 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 63.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 71.4% to Frontier at 55.6%. 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) | 763 | 71.4% | 77 min | 1.97% | C |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 159 | 70.2% | 94 min | 4.40% | C− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 155 | 61.9% | 67 min | 10.32% | D− |
| Frontier Airlines | 915 | 55.6% | 77 min | 3.17% | 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 33 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am303 flights81.1%
- 11am–2pm135 flights70.7%
- 2pm–5pm19 flights—
- 5pm–8pm253 flights67.1%
- 8pm–5am53 flights48.1%
Scale runs 40% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 48.1% on time, against 81.1% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 303 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHL to SJU through the year
December is the weak month at 50.7% on time, against 87.6% in April. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. April was the busiest month here, with 89 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.6%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on PHL to SJU runs when it is late
American on PHL to SJU often beats the schedule: 230 of 745 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 213 late arrivals split 67 under half an hour, 65 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 81 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early230 flights30.9%
- Within 15 min302 flights40.5%
- 15–29 min late67 flights9.0%
- 30–59 min late65 flights8.7%
- 1–2 hours late50 flights6.7%
- 2+ hours late31 flights4.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 745 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
47 of 196 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 24% of them. In the other direction, 64 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 SJU.
The worst days
Worst days for American on PHL to SJU
The latest arrival of the period was on 14 June 2026, 16 hours 2 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 14 June 2026 | 16 hours 2 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 June 2026 | 14 hours 8 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 October 2025 | 12 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 March 2026 | 9 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 December 2025 | 6 hours 32 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 43% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,019 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 16,418 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 81.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.97% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.39%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
10.9% 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 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 80.3% on time across 763 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. 763 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. 763 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 71.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 745 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
- JetBlue Airways on PHL to SJU70.2%
- Spirit Airlines on PHL to SJU61.9%
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to SJU55.6%
- 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 7.05 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.