Carrier route record

AAPIT→PHL

American Airlines · Pittsburgh to Philadelphia

Flights: 625
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 51%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on PIT to PHL sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 625 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PIT to PHL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

75.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 611 completed flights

Avg delay

93 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.24%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.2%

Every carrier on PIT to PHL, 1,226 flights

These figures cover 625 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.8% 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 PIT to PHL

American flew 625 of the 1,226 flights on PIT to PHL, most of the route. Its 75.1% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 89.7% to Frontier at 61.8%. Three 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.

On-time performance by carrier on PIT to PHL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airwaysthin sample	305	89.7%	46 min	1.64%	A
American Airlines (this page)	625	75.1%	93 min	2.24%	B
PSA Airlinesthin sample	192	72.5%	94 min	5.21%	C−
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	104	61.8%	123 min	1.92%	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 68 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–8am146 flights89.5%
8am–11am170 flights77.4%
11am–2pm93 flights82.8%
2pm–5pm65 flights22.0%
5pm–8pm150 flights74.8%
8pm–5am1 flights—

Scale runs 15% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.5% of the time, against 22.0% for the afternoon window. That is 68 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 170 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on PIT to PHL through the year

Jul–Sep 2025248 flights66.0%
Oct–Dec 2025115 flights74.8%
Apr–Jun 2026262 flights83.7%

Scale runs 60% to 90%. 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 75.1% on time across 625 flights.

American on PIT to PHL did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 83.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 66.0%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 208 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, Friday is the strongest day at 82.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 67.8%. 14 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 14,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
48%
Carrier
23%
National Airspace System
21%
Extreme weather
7%
Security
0%

48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 14,117 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.5% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 2.24% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

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. 9.8% 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 268 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg runs 74.6% on time across 626 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 625 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 PIT to PHL

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 625 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 75.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 611 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures