Route reliability record
RSW→PHL
Fort Myers to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,343
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 993 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,343 RSW to PHL flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly RSW to PHL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.6%, against 72.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 56 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,298 completed flights
Avg delay
102 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.35%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
74.1% on time across 1,041 flights
These figures cover 1,343 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.1% 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
Which airline is most reliable on RSW to PHL
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 | 1,041 | 74.1% | 113 min | 2.98% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 302 | 64.9% | 72 min | 4.64% | D− |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
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–8am249 flights93.3%
- 8am–11am50 flights79.2%
- 11am–2pm426 flights70.3%
- 2pm–5pm278 flights65.5%
- 5pm–8pm221 flights64.5%
- 8pm–5am119 flights59.5%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.5% on time, against 93.3% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 426 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
November is the best month on the calendar at 84.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 166 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.8%. 21 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 37,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
53% 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 37,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 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 36,903 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 93.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.35%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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 actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.1% 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.
The 993 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 72.2% on time across 1,344 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,343 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in PHL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.35% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,298 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RSW to PHL questions
How often is RSW to PHL delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.0% of the 1,343 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is RSW to PHL compared with the rest of the country?
72.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 6 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on RSW to PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 59.5%, 34 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are March delays on RSW to PHL?
March is the weakest month at 64.2% on time, compared with 84.5% in November. Across the year that is 20 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to RSW — the return legseparate record
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- American Airlines on RSW to PHL74.1%
- Frontier Airlines on RSW to PHL64.9%
- RSW to ORD, a related route76.5%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.9%
- RSW to ATL, a related route85.7%
- American Airlines on-time record74.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record64.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. RSW to PHL and PHL to RSW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.