Route profile
PHL→SJU
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Philadelphia to San Juan, 1,576 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 1% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 5,119 flights. How this is calculated
PHL → SJU arrives on time 63.5% of the time; the return trip, SJU → PHL, arrives on time 67.1% of the time, a 3.6-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
PHL → SJU spends 29.4 minutes on the ground on a 1,576-mile trip: 22.1 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at PHL and 7.3 minutes from touchdown to gate at SJU.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
Reliability here swings unusually widely by season, a wider month-to-month spread than 99% of 3,357 comparable routes.
76.3% on time in a typical November, against 45.8% in July.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 3,357 in the comparison.
Why PHL → SJU flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
PHL → SJU cancelled 115 of 5,119 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 45. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 66.1% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 67 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 115 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
76 cancellations, 66.1% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
32 cancellations, 27.8% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
7 cancellations, 6.1% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
115 coded cancellations were recorded on PHL → SJU; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
76 min late
against a median of 3 min late
PHL → SJU has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 3 min late, but the worst tenth are 73 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 5,119 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at SJU after arriving from PHL.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 55% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 36% | Likely to miss |
| 60 min | 25% | High risk |
| 90 min | 13% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 8.1% | Some risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 2.25% of the time and diverts 0.33% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 4,987 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 76 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 5,119 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
PHL → SJU flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 71.9% of the time, against 49.7% for 3–6 PM departures, a gap of 22.2 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 64.3% on time from 574 flights
- 7 AM: 70.5% on time from 175 flights
- 8 AM: 79.1% on time from 607 flights
- 9 AM: 76.4% on time from 152 flights
- 10 AM: 62.1% on time from 203 flights
- 11 AM: 64.5% on time from 384 flights
- 12 PM: 71.3% on time from 164 flights
- 1 PM to 2 PM: too few flights to score
- 3 PM: 45.0% on time from 165 flights
- 4 PM: 52.5% on time from 212 flights
- 5 PM: too few flights to score
- 6 PM: 59.8% on time from 507 flights
- 7 PM: 52.7% on time from 343 flights
- 8 PM: 58.3% on time from 958 flights
- 9 PM: 66.4% on time from 137 flights
- 10 PM: too few flights to score
- 11 PM: 70.6% on time from 235 flights
Why PHL → SJU runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
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 PHL → SJU. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlines | 2,462 | 57.0% | 2.72% | 8 min | 15.6% |
| American Airlines | 1,665 | 69.8% | 1.02% | -2 min | 11.5% |
| Spirit Airlines | 864 | 68.3% | 3.24% | 0 min | 11.9% |
Frontier Airlines flew 49.3% of the 4,991 flights listed. Spirit Airlines cancelled 3.24% of its flights here against 1.02% for American Airlines.
American Airlines arrived on time 12.8 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 6.6 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 62.9%
- Feb: 65.1%
- Mar: 63.6%
- Apr: 70.7%
- May: 67.6%
- Jun: 60.7%
- Jul: 45.8%
- Aug: 57.0%
- Sep: 73.4%
- Oct: 72.0%
- Nov: 76.3%
- Dec: 60.6%
July is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 30.5 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 42.7% from 124 flights
- August 2023: 58.7% from 124 flights
- September 2023: too few flights to score (88)
- October 2023: too few flights to score (97)
- November 2023: too few flights to score (115)
- December 2023: 60.6% from 132 flights
- January 2024: 60.5% from 161 flights
- February 2024: 65.6% from 126 flights
- March 2024: 61.5% from 124 flights
- April 2024: too few flights to score (114)
- May 2024: 57.7% from 129 flights
- June 2024: 43.9% from 135 flights
- July 2024: 45.2% from 137 flights
- August 2024: 60.0% from 128 flights
- September 2024: too few flights to score (57)
- October 2024: too few flights to score (65)
- November 2024: too few flights to score (103)
- December 2024: 66.7% from 164 flights
- January 2025: 72.3% from 164 flights
- February 2025: 70.5% from 148 flights
- March 2025: 71.6% from 157 flights
- April 2025: 67.1% from 166 flights
- May 2025: 63.0% from 165 flights
- June 2025: 62.3% from 132 flights
- July 2025: 43.7% from 132 flights
- August 2025: 52.5% from 126 flights
- September 2025: too few flights to score (64)
- October 2025: too few flights to score (95)
- November 2025: 71.8% from 126 flights
- December 2025: 54.4% from 163 flights
- January 2026: 56.4% from 192 flights
- February 2026: 60.0% from 176 flights
- March 2026: 58.7% from 203 flights
- April 2026: 74.2% from 224 flights
- May 2026: 77.6% from 198 flights
- June 2026: 71.9% from 180 flights
- July 2026: 50.0% from 185 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 63.0% against 67.5% in the 12 months before — declining by 4.5 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 5,119 PHL → SJU flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed