Carrier route record
AARDU→PHL
American Airlines · Raleigh to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,105
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 43%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on RDU to PHL 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 close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 1,105 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Frontier Airlines, flew 585 at 74.0% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on RDU to PHL runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 51 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,078 completed flights
Avg delay
101 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.35%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.5%
Every carrier on RDU to PHL, 2,562 flights
These figures cover 1,105 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.5% 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 RDU to PHL
American flew 1,105 of the 2,562 flights on RDU to PHL, about 43% of it. Its 72.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 73.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 85.0% to PSA at 70.8%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 216 | 85.0% | 66 min | 3.70% | A− |
| Frontier Airlines | 585 | 74.0% | 99 min | 4.62% | C− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,105 | 72.5% | 101 min | 2.35% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 656 | 70.8% | 83 min | 4.42% | C− |
Frontier Airlines cancels 4.6% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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 44 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am279 flights92.3%
- 8am–11am233 flights80.4%
- 11am–2pm216 flights75.2%
- 2pm–5pm195 flights54.0%
- 5pm–8pm182 flights48.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 48.6% on time, against 92.3% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 279 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on RDU to PHL through the year
July is the worst month at 56.9% on time, 33 points below April, the best at 89.5%. 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 172 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 64.0%. 20 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 30,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 30,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 29,768 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 92.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.35% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.09%.
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. 11.5% 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 337 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 71.3% on time across 1,105 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,105 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 RDU to PHL
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 89.5% on time and July 56.9%, a swing of 33 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,078 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RDU to PHL, every carrier
- American on PHL to RDU, the return leg
- Republic Airways on RDU to PHL85.0%
- Frontier Airlines on RDU to PHL74.0%
- PSA Airlines on RDU to PHL70.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- 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.