Route reliability record
SJU→PHL
San Juan to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,992
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,576 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 1,992 SJU to PHL flights, of which American Airlines flew 763 at 80.3% on time.
Best time to fly SJU to PHL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 78.0%, against 71.9% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 54 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,913 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
80.3% on time across 763 flights
These figures cover 1,992 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SJU to PHL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 80.3% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 63.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 916 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 159 | 90.7% | 65 min | 4.40% | A− |
| American Airlines | 763 | 80.3% | 100 min | 2.62% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 916 | 63.3% | 81 min | 3.17% | D− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 154 | 60.9% | 71 min | 10.39% | D− |
Frontier Airlines cancels 3.2% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on SJU to PHL
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly San Juan to Philadelphia
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SJU → PHLSan Juan to Philadelphia | American Airlines | 78.2% | 80.3% | 2.62% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. SJU → PHLSan Juan to Philadelphia | Frontier Airlines | 61.3% | 63.3% | 3.17% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 1015 01:59 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 30 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am623 flights85.4%
- 8am–11am38 flights81.1%
- 11am–2pm317 flights69.7%
- 2pm–5pm408 flights68.2%
- 5pm–8pm193 flights72.6%
- 8pm–5am413 flights55.2%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.2% on time, against 85.4% 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 623 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SJU 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 SJU to PHL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 55.2%, a wide gap of 30.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.4%
- 8–11am81.1%
- 11am–2pm69.7%
- 2–5pm68.2%
- 5–8pm72.6%
- 8pm–5am55.2%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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.
December is the weak month at 56.3% on time, against 85.8% in June. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. April was the busiest month here, with 224 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 68.1%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 46,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 42%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 46,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 to one. The split is drawn from 45,642 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 19,000 of the 46,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.61%, against 1.89% 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
9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 1,576 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 63.3% on time across 1,992 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,992 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 3.61% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 1,913 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SJU to PHL questions
How often is SJU 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 28.1% of the 1,992 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SJU to PHL?
American Airlines leads at 80.3% on time across 763 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 63.3%, a gap of 17 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SJU to PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 55.2%, 30 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 December delays on SJU to PHL?
December is the weakest month at 56.3% on time, compared with 85.8% in June. Across the year that is 30 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 SJU — the return legseparate record
- Luis Munoz Marin International (SJU) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on SJU to PHL90.7%
- American Airlines on SJU to PHL80.3%
- Frontier Airlines on SJU to PHL63.3%
- Spirit Airlines on SJU to PHL60.9%
- SJU to MCO, a related route78.0%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.6%
- SJU to JFK, a related route77.8%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record90.7%
- American Airlines on-time record80.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record63.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. SJU to PHL and PHL to SJU 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.