Flight number record
AA 117
American Airlines · New York to Los Angeles
- Route
- JFK → LAX
- Departs
- 20:00
- Flights
- 363
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 117, check with American Airlines.
AA 117 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so AA 117 runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 82 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 353 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.75%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
14.2%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 363 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When AA 117 flies
AA 117 flies JFK to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 20:00, used on 142 of 363 flights, with 19:45 (41 flights) and 19:40 (37 flights) next.
- Departs 20:00142 flights39.1%
- Departs 19:4541 flights11.3%
- Departs 19:4037 flights10.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 20:00 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and AA 117 runs level with that at 69.1%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
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Against the route
AA 117 next to JFK to LAX
Every carrier on JFK to LAX combined arrived on time 75.4% of the time across 10,285 flights, so AA 117 is 6 points behind it. American flew 3,298 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 78.6% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.7%, which this flight trails by 6 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA 117thin sample | 363 | 69.1% | 85 min | 2.75% | C |
| All American Airlines on JFK–LAX | 3,298 | 78.6% | 96 min | 2.61% | B |
| All carriers on JFK–LAX | 10,285 | 75.4% | 78 min | 2.78% | B |
| American Airlines, whole network | 988,892 | 74.7% | 85 min | 2.14% | C |
Across the year
AA 117 quarter by quarter
AA 117 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 76.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 60.3%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 73 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights76.7%
- Oct–Dec 202590 flights67.0%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights68.6%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights74.7%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights60.3%
Scale runs 50% to 80%.
By weekday, AA 117 did best on Tuesday at 76.5% on time and worst on Thursday at 62.0%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 15 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late AA 117 runs when it is late
AA 117 often beats the schedule: 128 of 353 completed flights, 36%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 109 late arrivals split 32 under half an hour, 27 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 50 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early128 flights36.3%
- Within 15 min116 flights32.9%
- 15–29 min late32 flights9.1%
- 30–59 min late27 flights7.6%
- 1–2 hours late22 flights6.2%
- 2+ hours late28 flights7.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 353 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
31 of 110 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 28% of them. In the other direction, 30 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at LAX.
The worst days
Worst days for AA 117
The latest arrival of the period was on 18 October 2025, 12 hours 58 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 18 October 2025 | 12 hours 58 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 February 2026 | 4 hours 45 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 11 January 2026 | 4 hours 17 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 20 September 2025 | 3 hours 41 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 August 2026 | 3 hours 34 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why AA 117 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 9,263 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,263 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 9,263 delay minutes reported on AA 117.
Cancellations run at 2.75%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
14.2% 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.
At 2,475 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
Every one of the 363 flights under AA 117 in the data flew JFK to LAX. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 363 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking AA 117
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on AA 117: 2.75% of its 363 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs an hour and a half, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- JFK to LAX, every carrier and departure
- LAX to JFK, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 738 on the same route72.7%
- American Airlines 171 on the same route88.1%
- Delta Air Lines 773 on the same route78.6%
- American Airlines 255 on the same route78.3%
- American Airlines 341 on the same route76.4%
- American Airlines 300 on the same route69.8%
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- American Airlines on-time record
- Every American Airlines flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
A flight number here means American Airlines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.
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.