Carrier route record

AASFO→PHL

American Airlines · San Francisco to Philadelphia

Flights: 1,286
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 65%
Carriers: 2

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

American on SFO to PHL earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 1,286 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, American's SFO to PHL record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 71 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

84.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,261 completed flights

Avg delay

108 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.87%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

85.4%

Every carrier on SFO to PHL, 1,992 flights

These figures cover 1,286 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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.

Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on SFO to PHL

American flew 1,286 of the 1,992 flights on SFO to PHL, most of the route. Its 84.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 85.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 86.6% to American at 84.7%.

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 SFO to PHL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	706	86.6%	50 min	0.57%	A+
American Airlines (this page)	1,286	84.7%	108 min	1.87%	B

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 19 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–8am370 flights92.9%
8am–11am235 flights73.8%
11am–2pm266 flights79.8%
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am415 flights86.8%

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 92.9% of the time, against 73.8% for the morning window. That is 19 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 415 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on SFO to PHL through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, July worst

July is the worst month at 67.0% on time, 27 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. June was the busiest month here, with 148 flights.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 87.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 81.2%. 7 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 45% of the 21,000 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
45%
Carrier
45%
National Airspace System
9%
Extreme weather
0%
Security
0%

45% 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 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 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 20,846 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 9,306 of the 21,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.87% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

5.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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 73.7% on time across 1,288 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 1,286 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 67.0%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,261 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