Flight profile · American Airlines
AA2531
Philadelphia (PHL) to Orlando (MCO) · scheduled 7:06 PM – 9:30 PM
How AA2531 performs
692 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
AA2531 arrived on time 62.5% of the time, against 72.7% for all PHL → MCO flights, so this departure is 10.2 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against American Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 11.5 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 692 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If AA2531 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
What stands out
How AA2531 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight's worst arrivals run unusually far past its typical one, a bigger gap than 94% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.
A typical arrival is 2 min late, but the worst tenth run 103 minutes worse than that.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · The one thing about this specific departure that ranks most extreme against every other published flight number, out of everything FlyerIntel checks — shown only when something clears a real statistical bar, not for every flight.
Where AA2531 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA2531 | 62.5% | 2.17% | 2 min | 19.6% | 692 |
| American Airlines on PHL → MCO | 74.0% | 1.86% | -6 min | 11.0% | 7,844 |
| All PHL → MCO flights | 72.7% | 2.13% | -6 min | 12.1% | 17,467 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why AA2531 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for AA2531 on PHL → MCO. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies AA2531 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, AA2531 pushed back an average of 49 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 16 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into PHL just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 524 of 680 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA2531 | 29% | 70% | 20% |
| Network, same turn | 17% | 68% | 9% |
The schedule leaves a normal turn: enough time to clean and board if the aircraft is on time, little to spare if it is not.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 60 to 89 minutes. How often AA2531’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often AA2531 left 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves PHL late, does that still matter by the time it reaches MCO?
AA2531 pushes back an average of 29.9 minutes late and reaches the gate at MCO an average of 25.7 minutes late. The 4.3 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. It spends 24.8 minutes on the taxiways at PHL, 3.1 minutes shorter than a typical PHL departure in the same hour.
On arrival at MCO, AA2531 spends 14.2 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is 3.3 minutes longer than a typical MCO arrival (10.9 min).
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached MCO. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 24,665 departures from PHL scheduled in the clock hour AA2531 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at MCO (498,229 flights), not just AA2531’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves PHL
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. AA2531 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 24,665 departures from PHL are scheduled in the 7 PM–8 PM hour over the period, against 305,181 across the whole day.
AA2531 is scheduled out of PHL at 7:06 PM, in the 7 PM–8 PM bank. Departures from PHL in that hour arrive on time 65.2% of the time against 76.2% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 11.1 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from PHL to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes AA2531 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| CHS→PHL Charleston to Philadelphia | March 8, 2026 – April 6, 2026 | 26 | — |
| PHL→CHS Philadelphia to Charleston | March 8, 2026 – April 6, 2026 | 26 | — |
| DFW→PHX Dallas–Fort Worth to Phoenix | February 12, 2026 – March 7, 2026 | 24 | — |
| DFW→OMA Dallas–Fort Worth to Omaha | January 6, 2026 – February 11, 2026 | 31 | — |
| OMA→DFW Omaha to Dallas–Fort Worth | January 7, 2026 – February 11, 2026 | 30 | — |
| FLL→PHL Fort Lauderdale to Philadelphia | December 18, 2025 – January 5, 2026 | 16 | — |
| PHL→FLL Philadelphia to Fort Lauderdale | December 18, 2025 – January 5, 2026 | 16 | — |
| DFW→LAX Dallas–Fort Worth to Los Angeles | December 3–17, 2025 | 15 | — |
| CLT→PHL Charlotte to Philadelphia | November 2, 2025 – December 2, 2025 | 31 | — |
| ORD→DFW Chicago to Dallas–Fort Worth | October 6, 2025 – November 1, 2025 | 27 | — |
| MIA→MSY Miami to New Orleans | May 5, 2025 – June 4, 2025 | 31 | — |
| MSY→MIA New Orleans to Miami | May 5, 2025 – June 4, 2025 | 31 | — |
| ICT→PHX Wichita to Phoenix | October 16–19, 2024 | 2 | — |
| ORD→RNO Chicago to Reno | June 5, 2024 – September 3, 2024 | 90 | 42.5% |
| LAS→DCA Las Vegas to Washington | May 6, 2024 – June 4, 2024 | 30 | — |
| CLT→DCA Charlotte to Washington | April 4, 2024 – May 4, 2024 | 31 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route AA2531 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
105 min late
against a median of 2 min late
AA2531 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 2 min late, but the worst tenth are 103 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 692 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F92415 | Frontier Airlines | 76.3% | 10 min early | 625 |
| F91807 | Frontier Airlines | 75.3% | 9 min early | 819 |
| F92505 | Frontier Airlines | 65.3% | 2 min early | 851 |
| AA2531 this flight | American Airlines | 62.5% | 2 min late | 692 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. AA2531 is placed in the same ordering rather than left out of it; the rows around it are the most punctual departures on the route, not all of them, so this is a comparison and not a rank. Schedules change; confirm the departure still operates before booking around this.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 692 records of AA2531 operating PHL → MCO, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
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