Route reliability record
SAN→PHL
San Diego to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,047
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,370 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 10 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 1,047 SAN to PHL flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.
Best time to fly SAN to PHL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.5%, against 87.0% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 97 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,018 completed flights
Avg delay
112 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.53%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
87.0% on time across 1,047 flights
These figures cover 1,047 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 15 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SAN 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 | 1,047 | 87.0% | 112 min | 1.53% | A |
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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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am327 flights92.0%
- 8am–11am364 flights80.5%
- 11am–2pm37 flights91.2%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am319 flights88.7%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.0% of the time, against 80.5% for the morning window. That is 12 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 364 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SAN to PHL by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On SAN to PHL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.0% on time and the worst is 8am–11am at 80.5%, a wide gap of 11.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.0%
- 8–11am80.5%
- 11am–2pm91.2%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am88.7%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
July is the worst month at 77.8% on time, 16 points below December, the best at 94.2%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 84.1%, a spread of 4 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 53% of the 15,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%Extreme weather
- 9%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 11% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 14,840 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,824 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.53% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.24%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 2,370 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 78.5% on time across 1,047 flights, 9 points below 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. 1,047 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in PHL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,047 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 87.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,018 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAN to PHL questions
How often is SAN to PHL delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.0% of the 1,047 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is SAN to PHL compared with the rest of the country?
87.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 10 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SAN to PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.0% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 80.5%, 12 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 July delays on SAN to PHL?
July is the weakest month at 77.8% on time, compared with 94.2% in December. Across the year that is 16 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 SAN — the return legseparate record
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- SAN to SFO, a related route59.5%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.6%
- SAN to DEN, a related route78.4%
- American Airlines on-time record87.0%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. SAN to PHL and PHL to SAN 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.