PlainFlights

PHL vs SFO - Airport Comparison

Select two airports to compare on-time performance, delays, cancellations, and top routes using U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) data (2020–2025) across all 50 states. See our methodology for how metrics are computed.

Airport A
PHL

Philadelphia, PA

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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Airport B
SFO

San Francisco, CA

San Francisco, California

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Key Performance Metrics

BTS on-time performance data, 2020–2025 cumulative.

Metric PHL SFO
On-Time Rate (higher is better) 81.3% 81.0%
Avg Delay (lower is better) 84.7 min 72.5 min
Delay Rate (lower is better) 18.7% 19.0%
Cancellation Rate (lower is better) 1.19% 0.85%
Total Flights 1,060,086 1,466,784
Delayed Flights 198,194 278,538
Cancelled Flights 12,586 12,405
Top Delay Cause Late Aircraft Late Aircraft

✓ / ▲ indicates the more favorable value. Data: BTS On-Time Performance, 2020–2025.

Delay Cause Breakdown

PHL - Philadelphia, PA

Late Aircraft 41.1%
Carrier 31.7%
NAS 22.4%
Weather 4.7%
Security 0.2%

SFO - San Francisco, CA

Late Aircraft 42.0%
Carrier 36.9%
NAS 17.9%
Weather 3.2%
Security 0.1%

Top Routes

Top routes from PHL

Route Flights On-Time
MCO → PHL
Philadelphia
32,254 74.8%
PHL → MCO
Orlando
32,240 76.4%
ATL → PHL
Philadelphia
32,104 80.2%
PHL → ATL
Atlanta
32,089 83.4%
PHL → BOS
Boston
26,321 82%
BOS → PHL
Philadelphia
26,282 83.5%

Top routes from SFO

Route Flights On-Time
LAX → SFO
San Francisco
63,553 78.7%
SFO → LAX
Los Angeles
63,540 82.9%
SFO → SEA
Seattle
37,671 82.1%
SEA → SFO
San Francisco
37,651 79.1%
JFK → SFO
San Francisco
35,481 81.9%
SFO → JFK
New York
35,481 83.2%

Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), On-Time Performance Data (2020–2025) Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), On-Time Performance Data (2020–2025) On-time rates exclude cancelled and diverted flights. PlainFlights is not affiliated with BTS or the DOT

Every figure on PlainFlights is rendered directly from BTS On-Time Performance data, no number is typed in by an editor. This tool queries live on-time, delay, and cancellation figures for the two selected airports from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.