Flight number record
AA 1200
American Airlines · Washington to Chicago
- Route
- DCA → ORD
- Departs
- 09:59
- Flights
- 299
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 1200, check with American Airlines.
AA 1200 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 299 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
74.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 288 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.34%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
12.8%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 299 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When AA 1200 flies
AA 1200 flies DCA to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 09:59, used on 62 of 299 flights, with 09:35 (50 flights) and 09:45 (38 flights) next.
- Departs 09:5962 flights20.7%
- Departs 09:3550 flights16.7%
- Departs 09:4538 flights12.7%
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 09:59 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and AA 1200 runs 10 points worse at 74.0%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
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Against the route
AA 1200 next to DCA to ORD
Every carrier on DCA to ORD combined arrived on time 73.8% of the time across 7,112 flights, so AA 1200 is about level with it. American flew 2,271 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 72.9% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.7%, close to this flight's figure.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA 1200thin sample | 299 | 74.0% | 91 min | 2.34% | C |
| All American Airlines on DCA–ORD | 2,271 | 72.9% | 89 min | 3.61% | C− |
| All carriers on DCA–ORD | 7,112 | 73.8% | 86 min | 3.56% | C− |
| American Airlines, whole network | 988,892 | 74.7% | 85 min | 2.14% | C |
Across the year
AA 1200 quarter by quarter
AA 1200 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 78.0% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 66.7%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 75 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 flights66.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights70.8%
- Jan–Mar 202664 flights73.8%
- Apr–Jun 202685 flights78.0%
- Jul–Sep 202628 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, AA 1200 did best on Thursday at 88.1% on time and worst on Sunday at 58.5%. Each day rests on about 43 flights, so a gap of 30 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late AA 1200 runs when it is late
AA 1200 often beats the schedule: 89 of 288 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 75 late arrivals split 27 under half an hour, 11 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 37 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early89 flights30.9%
- Within 15 min124 flights43.1%
- 15–29 min late27 flights9.4%
- 30–59 min late11 flights3.8%
- 1–2 hours late16 flights5.6%
- 2+ hours late21 flights7.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 288 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
12 of 75 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. 12 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for AA 1200
The latest arrival of the period was on 18 February 2026, 12 hours 30 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 18 February 2026 | 12 hours 30 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 24 June 2026 | 8 hours 24 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 October 2025 | 4 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 September 2025 | 4 hours 9 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 September 2025 | 4 hours 4 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why AA 1200 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 6,842 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,842 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 36 to one. The split is drawn from 6,842 delay minutes reported on AA 1200.
Cancellations sit at 2.34% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.34%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
12.8% 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.
The 612 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The same number turns up on four other city pairs in the data, including ORD to DCA (54), LAX to IAD (33) and DFW to OKC (26), but none flew often enough under AA 1200 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to DCA to ORD only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 299 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 1200
For a booking, AA 1200 is a flight to put a long connection behind. 12.8% of its completed flights arrived an hour or more late, which a short layover will not absorb. If the onward flight is on a separate ticket, the risk sits with you.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to DCA, the return direction
- United Airlines 1793 on the same route91.0%
- United Airlines 2148 on the same route49.4%
- American Airlines 2903 on the same route74.6%
- United Airlines 2201 on the same route90.8%
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) 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.