Flight number record
AA 1200
American Airlines · Washington to Chicago
- Route
- DCA → ORD
- Departs
- 09:59
- Flights
- 332
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 332 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
74.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 320 completed flights
Avg delay
108 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.71%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
11.9%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 332 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
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 83 of 332 flights, with 09:35 (50 flights) and 09:45 (38 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 09:5983 flights25.0%
- Departs 09:3550 flights15.1%
- Departs 09:4538 flights11.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
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 84.1%, and AA 1200 runs 10 points worse at 74.4%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
Against the route
AA 1200 next to DCA to ORD
Every carrier on DCA to ORD combined arrived on time 74.3% of the time across 6,992 flights, so AA 1200 is about level with it. American flew 2,301 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 74.7% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.4%, close to this flight's figure.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA 1200thin sample | 332 | 74.4% | 108 min | 2.71% | C |
| All American Airlines on DCA–ORD | 2,301 | 74.7% | 91 min | 4.00% | C− |
| All carriers on DCA–ORD | 6,992 | 74.3% | 88 min | 3.40% | C− |
| American Airlines, whole network | 986,297 | 74.4% | 85 min | 2.29% | C |
Across the year
AA 1200 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter AA 1200 held fairly steady: 75.0% in Jul–Sep 2025, 70.8% in Oct–Dec 2025, 73.8% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 78.0% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 7 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202591 flights75.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights70.8%
- Jan–Mar 202664 flights73.8%
- Apr–Jun 202685 flights78.0%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, AA 1200 did best on Saturday at 87.0% on time and worst on Wednesday at 62.2%. Each day rests on about 47 flights, so a gap of 25 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why AA 1200 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 59% of the 8,818 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 59%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
59% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 8,818 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 52 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 8,818 delay minutes reported on AA 1200.
Cancellations run at 2.71%, against 1.81% 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.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The same number turns up on three other city pairs in the data, including ORD to DCA (54), DFW to OKC (26) and CLT to IND (1), 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. 332 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, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on AA 1200: 2.71% of its 332 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs close to two hours, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to DCA, the return direction
- United Airlines 1793 on the same route91.4%
- American Airlines 2903 on the same route77.6%
- United Airlines 2201 on the same route91.8%
- United Airlines 2148 on the same route51.5%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.