Flight number record
AA 1217
American Airlines · Raleigh to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Route
- RDU → DFW
- Departs
- 09:42
- Flights
- 358
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 1217, check with American Airlines.
AA 1217 lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 2.4 hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 358 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, AA 1217's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 54 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 347 completed flights
Avg delay
141 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.79%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
7.2%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 358 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 1217 flies
AA 1217 flies RDU to DFW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 09:42, used on 44 of 358 flights, with 09:00 (40 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 09:4244 flights12.3%
- Departs 09:0040 flights11.2%
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 09:42 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and AA 1217 runs level with that at 83.0%. 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 1217 next to RDU to DFW
Every carrier on RDU to DFW combined arrived on time 77.6% of the time across 2,278 flights, so AA 1217 is 5 points ahead of it. American flew 2,012 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 78.1% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.4%, which this flight beats by 9 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA 1217thin sample | 358 | 83.0% | 141 min | 2.79% | B |
| All American Airlines on RDU–DFW | 2,012 | 78.1% | 88 min | 2.93% | B |
| All carriers on RDU–DFW | 2,278 | 77.6% | 85 min | 2.94% | B |
| American Airlines, whole network | 986,297 | 74.4% | 85 min | 2.29% | C |
Across the year
AA 1217 quarter by quarter
AA 1217 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 91.5% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 67.4%, a swing of 24 points on roughly 90 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 202592 flights67.4%
- Oct–Dec 202590 flights85.6%
- Jan–Mar 202685 flights91.5%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights87.6%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, AA 1217 ranged from 77.1% on Sunday to 88.2% on Tuesday. With about 51 flights behind each day, a spread of 11 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Delay causes
Why AA 1217 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 58% of the 8,319 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.
- 58%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 58%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 4,812 of the 8,319 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 8,319 delay minutes reported on AA 1217.
Cancellations run at 2.79%, 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
7.2% 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 about 2.4 hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,061 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.
Every one of the 358 flights under AA 1217 in the data flew RDU to DFW. 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. 358 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 1217
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on AA 1217: 2.79% of its 358 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about 2.4 hours, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- RDU to DFW, every carrier and departure
- DFW to RDU, the return direction
- American Airlines 2693 on the same route68.7%
- American Airlines 802 on the same route85.4%
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) 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
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.