Carrier performance at one airport
AA→JFK
American Airlines at John F. Kennedy International
- Departures
- 15,348
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Routes
- 13
- Rank here
- #1 of 6
American Airlines at New York lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 15,348 flights, of which American Airlines flew 15,348 at 77.8% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, American Airlines runs 3 points ahead of the 74.3% weighted average across all carriers at JFK. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
77.8%
14,840 completed departures
Avg delay
97 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.93%
At JFK, this carrier only
Rank here
#1
Of 6 carriers clearing the floor at JFK
These figures cover 15,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Against the competition
Every carrier at JFK, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 77.8% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 69.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,971 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 15,348 | 77.8% | 97 min | 2.93% | B |
| Republic Airways | 14,963 | 76.5% | 76 min | 5.38% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 30,645 | 76.5% | 71 min | 3.01% | B− |
| Alaska Airlines | 4,032 | 71.5% | 68 min | 2.80% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 35,630 | 70.7% | 75 min | 4.90% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,971 | 69.5% | 91 min | 2.33% | C |
Republic Airways cancels 5.4% 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.
Route by route
Where American Airlines flies from JFK
American Airlines operates 13 routes out of JFK with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JFK to LAX · Los Angeles | 3,298 | 78.6% | 96 min | 2.61% | B |
| JFK to MIA · Miami | 2,693 | 76.9% | 113 min | 2.97% | B |
| JFK to CLT · Charlotte | 1,859 | 79.7% | 99 min | 3.17% | B− |
| JFK to PHX · Phoenix | 1,647 | 79.3% | 97 min | 2.67% | B |
| JFK to SFO · San Francisco | 1,501 | 74.6% | 67 min | 2.86% | C |
| JFK to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 1,471 | 77.2% | 89 min | 2.72% | B |
| JFK to AUS · Austin | 944 | 77.5% | 127 min | 3.81% | B− |
| JFK to ORD · Chicago | 542 | 73.1% | 91 min | 5.17% | C− |
| JFK to LAS · Las Vegas | 522 | 81.0% | 101 min | 2.11% | B |
| JFK to SNA · Santa Ana | 376 | 82.8% | 57 min | 2.13% | B |
| JFK to STT · Charlotte Amaliethin sample | 305 | 79.9% | 126 min | 1.97% | B |
| JFK to EGE · Eaglethin sample | 110 | 77.5% | 96 min | 5.45% | B− |
| JFK to JAC · Jacksonthin sample | 75 | 57.5% | 108 min | 2.67% | D |
Flight by flight
American Airlines flight numbers from JFK
19 American Airlines flight numbers leaving JFK flew their main route often enough to have a record of their own. Grouped by destination.
- AA 2772to AUS 17:5375.6%
- AA 1444to CLT 07:5984.5%
- AA 1953to DFW 11:0069.0%
- AA 1to LAX 07:0085.7%
- AA 3to LAX 11:0084.9%
- AA 117to LAX 20:0069.1%
- AA 171to LAX 06:0088.1%
- AA 255to LAX 09:3078.3%
- AA 300to LAX 21:0069.8%
- AA 302to LAX 17:2974.6%
- AA 306to LAX 16:3079.7%
- AA 341to LAX 15:3076.4%
- AA 688to MIA 11:0075.2%
- AA 2017to MIA 07:3084.8%
- AA 2829to PHX 12:2980.2%
- AA 15to SFO 17:0073.7%
- AA 76to SFO 06:0088.7%
- AA 177to SFO 21:0060.4%
- AA 179to SFO 07:3079.8%
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 21 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am3,361 flights87.4%
- 8am–11am3,001 flights81.0%
- 11am–2pm2,191 flights78.7%
- 2pm–5pm2,535 flights73.9%
- 5pm–8pm3,096 flights70.9%
- 8pm–5am1,164 flights66.9%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.4% of the time, against 66.9% for the overnight window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 3,361 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
August is the worst month at 70.4% on time, 14 points below April, the best at 84.8%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 1,452 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 320,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 319,504 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.93%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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.
9.6% 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.
15,348 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.93% 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. 14,840 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
American Airlines at JFK
How often is American Airlines at JFK delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.2% of the 15,348 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 American Airlines at JFK?
American Airlines leads at 77.8% on time across 15,348 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 69.5%, a gap of 8 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 American Airlines at JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.9%, 21 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 August delays on American Airlines at JFK?
August is the weakest month at 70.4% on time, compared with 84.8% in April. Across the year that is 14 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
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.