Flight number record

AA 1203

American Airlines · Charlotte to Buffalo

Route: CLT → BUF
Departs: 11:01
Flights: 256
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 1203, check with American Airlines.

AA 1203 earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 256 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, AA 1203's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 67 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

84.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 249 completed flights

Avg delay

69 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.73%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

6.4%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 256 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Schedule

When AA 1203 flies

AA 1203 flies CLT to BUF without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 11:01, used on 46 of 256 flights, with 10:22 (37 flights) and 09:10 (28 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 11:0146 flights18.0%
Departs 10:2237 flights14.5%
Departs 09:1028 flights10.9%

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 11:01 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.8%, and AA 1203 runs 6 points better at 84.3%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

AA 1203 next to CLT to BUF

Every carrier on CLT to BUF combined arrived on time 72.0% of the time across 1,192 flights, so AA 1203 is 12 points ahead of it. American flew 1,191 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 72.0% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.4%, which this flight beats by 10 points.

AA 1203 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
AA 1203thin sample	256	84.3%	69 min	2.73%	B
All American Airlines on CLT–BUF	1,191	72.0%	69 min	1.93%	C
All carriers on CLT–BUF	1,192	72.0%	69 min	1.93%	C
American Airlines, whole network	986,297	74.4%	85 min	2.29%	C

Across the year

AA 1203 quarter by quarter

Quarter by quarter AA 1203 held fairly steady: 87.3% in Jul–Sep 2025, 85.2% in Oct–Dec 2025 and 83.3% in Jan–Mar 2026. A spread of 4 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Jul–Sep 202571 flights87.3%
Oct–Dec 202589 flights85.2%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights83.3%
Apr–Jun 20266 flights—

Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, AA 1203 did best on Thursday at 94.9% on time and worst on Monday at 60.6%. Each day rests on about 37 flights, so a gap of 34 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why AA 1203 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 2,692 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
44%
Carrier
40%
National Airspace System
7%
Extreme weather
7%
Security
2%

44% 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 2,692 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 2,692 delay minutes reported on AA 1203.

Cancellations run at 2.73%, against 1.81% 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

6.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 546 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.

AA 1203 is not only a CLT to BUF flight. It also flew BUF to CLT (255 flights, 81.1% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 256 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.

Other routes flown as AA 1203
Also flown as	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
BUF to CLTthin sample	255	81.1%	89 min	2.35%	B

What to do with this

Booking AA 1203

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on AA 1203: 2.73% of its 256 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs a little over an hour, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures