Carrier route record
AAPHL→SLC
American Airlines · Philadelphia to Salt Lake City
- Flights
- 220
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 26%
- 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 SLC sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 220 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on PHL to SLC runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 47 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 207 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.45%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.9%
Every carrier on PHL to SLC, 833 flights
These figures cover 220 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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 SLC
American flew 220 of the 833 flights on PHL to SLC, about 26% of it. Its 72.9% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 78.3% to American at 72.9%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 613 | 78.3% | 59 min | 1.31% | B |
| American Airlines (this page)thin sample | 220 | 72.9% | 85 min | 5.45% | C− |
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 220 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split American's PHL to SLC record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 72.9% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
American on PHL to SLC through the year
- Jul–Sep 202563 flights53.6%
- Oct–Dec 202514 flights—
- Jan–Mar 202652 flights79.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights80.0%
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 72.9% on time across 220 flights.
American on PHL to SLC did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 80.0% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 53.6%, a swing of 26 points on roughly 73 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 71.0%. 7 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 67% of the 4,772 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.
- 67%Carrier
- 15%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 67%, 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 3,176 of the 4,772 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,772 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 5.45%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty 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
8.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,927 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 89.8% on time across 220 flights, 17 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 17 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 220 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 SLC
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.45% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5pm–8pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 207 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to SLC, every carrier
- American on SLC to PHL, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on PHL to SLC78.3%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.