Carrier route record
AASFO→PHL
American Airlines · San Francisco to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,333
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 64%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on SFO to PHL earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 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 1,333 flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, American's SFO to PHL record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 81 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,307 completed flights
Avg delay
107 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.80%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
85.2%
Every carrier on SFO to PHL, 2,082 flights
These figures cover 1,333 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 14 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
American against every carrier on SFO to PHL
American flew 1,333 of the 2,082 flights on SFO to PHL, most of the route. Its 85.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 85.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 85.4% to United at 84.8%.
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 (this page) | 1,333 | 85.4% | 107 min | 1.80% | A |
| United Airlines | 749 | 84.8% | 49 min | 0.53% | B+ |
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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 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am386 flights95.5%
- 8am–11am256 flights73.7%
- 11am–2pm234 flights82.3%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am457 flights85.1%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.5% of the time, against 73.7% for the morning window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 457 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on SFO to PHL through the year
July is the worst month at 72.1% on time, 22 points below February, the best at 94.4%. 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 152 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 88.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 82.3%, a spread of 6 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on SFO to PHL runs when it is late
American on SFO to PHL often beats the schedule: 635 of 1,307 completed flights, 49%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 191 late arrivals split 73 under half an hour, 50 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 68 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early635 flights48.6%
- Within 15 min481 flights36.8%
- 15–29 min late73 flights5.6%
- 30–59 min late50 flights3.8%
- 1–2 hours late36 flights2.8%
- 2+ hours late32 flights2.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,307 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 245 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 91 still arrived on time. 37 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on SFO to PHL
The latest arrival of the period was on 21 December 2025, 32 hours 31 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 21 December 2025 | 32 hours 31 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 3 June 2026 | 25 hours | Carrier |
| 28 June 2026 | 15 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 April 2026 | 14 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 September 2025 | 13 hours 26 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 21,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. The split is drawn from 20,502 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,425 of the 21,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.80% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,522 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 73.2% on time across 1,335 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,333 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 SFO to PHL
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 94.4% on time and July 72.1%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,307 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to PHL, every carrier
- American on PHL to SFO, the return leg
- United Airlines on SFO to PHL84.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.