Carrier performance at one airport
AA→ORD
American Airlines at Chicago O'Hare International
- Departures
- 61,506
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #9 of 12
American Airlines at Chicago draws a C. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is an hour and a half behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 61,506 flights, of which Envoy Air flew 57,966 at 76.1% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, American Airlines runs 4 points behind the 70.7% weighted average across all carriers at ORD. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
66.4%
59,726 completed departures
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.56%
At ORD, this carrier only
Rank here
#9
Of 12 carriers clearing the floor at ORD
These figures cover 62,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Against the competition
Every carrier at ORD, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 76.1% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 60.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,832 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 57,966 | 76.1% | 65 min | 2.93% | B |
| Republic Airways | 33,415 | 76.1% | 74 min | 3.81% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,293 | 73.1% | 99 min | 6.34% | C− |
| United Airlines | 102,132 | 73.0% | 73 min | 1.30% | C |
| Delta Air Lines | 10,687 | 72.0% | 91 min | 3.13% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 3,139 | 71.3% | 70 min | 1.40% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 4,179 | 67.7% | 109 min | 3.76% | C− |
| Alaska Airlines | 3,346 | 67.4% | 70 min | 1.82% | C |
| American Airlines (this page) | 61,506 | 66.4% | 82 min | 2.56% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 78,955 | 65.8% | 88 min | 4.06% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines | 3,558 | 63.4% | 83 min | 5.99% | D− |
| PSA Airlines | 2,832 | 60.2% | 127 min | 7.06% | D− |
PSA Airlines cancels 7.1% 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 ORD
American Airlines operates 25 routes out of ORD 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 4,297 | 68.9% | 89 min | 3.16% | C− |
| ORD to CLT · Charlotte | 3,145 | 74.7% | 83 min | 2.32% | C |
| ORD to LAX · Los Angeles | 3,092 | 67.7% | 77 min | 1.78% | C |
| ORD to PHX · Phoenix | 3,062 | 70.1% | 88 min | 2.09% | C |
| ORD to MIA · Miami | 3,044 | 74.6% | 76 min | 1.77% | C |
| ORD to PHL · Philadelphia | 3,010 | 71.2% | 95 min | 4.42% | C− |
| ORD to LGA · New York | 2,990 | 65.6% | 80 min | 4.65% | C− |
| ORD to DCA · Washington | 2,268 | 66.3% | 91 min | 3.62% | C− |
| ORD to BOS · Boston | 2,164 | 59.5% | 78 min | 2.91% | D |
| ORD to MCO · Orlando | 2,161 | 65.9% | 77 min | 2.17% | C |
| ORD to LAS · Las Vegas | 1,897 | 64.9% | 71 min | 2.16% | D |
| ORD to SFO · San Francisco | 1,766 | 59.9% | 73 min | 1.64% | D |
| ORD to DEN · Denver | 1,475 | 65.5% | 73 min | 1.56% | C |
| ORD to SAN · San Diego | 1,400 | 64.3% | 64 min | 1.57% | D |
| ORD to SEA · Seattle | 1,353 | 64.1% | 68 min | 1.63% | D |
| ORD to AUS · Austin | 1,206 | 65.6% | 81 min | 2.49% | C |
| ORD to RSW · Fort Myers | 1,178 | 71.2% | 72 min | 1.78% | C |
| ORD to TPA · Tampa | 1,155 | 67.8% | 72 min | 1.90% | C |
| ORD to SNA · Santa Ana | 1,123 | 73.6% | 63 min | 1.69% | C |
| ORD to SLC · Salt Lake City | 1,045 | 64.0% | 71 min | 1.91% | D |
| ORD to EWR · Newark | 926 | 59.0% | 87 min | 4.97% | D− |
| ORD to PDX · Portland | 899 | 59.3% | 77 min | 1.11% | D |
| ORD to IAH · Houston | 882 | 59.8% | 81 min | 3.06% | D− |
| ORD to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 866 | 68.9% | 74 min | 1.50% | C |
| ORD to ATL · Atlanta | 754 | 59.5% | 94 min | 2.52% | D |
Flight by flight
American Airlines flight numbers from ORD
12 American Airlines flight numbers leaving ORD flew their main route often enough to have a record of their own. Grouped by destination.
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 31 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am8,551 flights84.0%
- 8am–11am13,241 flights73.2%
- 11am–2pm10,249 flights67.1%
- 2pm–5pm8,375 flights61.4%
- 5pm–8pm12,073 flights58.6%
- 8pm–5am9,017 flights53.5%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 53.5% on time, against 84.0% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 13,241 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
August is the worst month at 59.2% on time, 16 points below November, the best at 74.8%. 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 6,107 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 1.64 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 1,643,412 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.56%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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.
14.5% 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.
61,506 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 74.8% on time and August 59.2%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 59,726 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
American Airlines at ORD
How often is American Airlines at ORD delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 33.6% of the 61,506 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 ORD?
Envoy Air leads at 76.1% on time across 57,966 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 60.2%, a gap of 16 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 ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 53.5%, 31 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 ORD?
August is the weakest month at 59.2% on time, compared with 74.8% in November. Across the year that is 16 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.