Flight number record

AA 1253

American Airlines · Chicago to San Francisco

Route: ORD → SFO
Departs: 15:17
Flights: 311
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 1253, check with American Airlines.

AA 1253 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 311 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so AA 1253 runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 64 extra late arrivals.

On time

71.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 309 completed flights

Avg delay

87 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.64%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

13.3%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 311 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.3% 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 1253 flies

AA 1253 flies ORD to SFO without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 15:17, used on 56 of 311 flights, with 06:55 (44 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 15:1756 flights18.0%
Departs 06:5544 flights14.1%

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 15:17 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 72.4%, and AA 1253 runs level with that at 71.2%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

AA 1253 next to ORD to SFO

Every carrier on ORD to SFO combined arrived on time 67.6% of the time across 5,627 flights, so AA 1253 is 4 points ahead of it. American flew 1,764 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 63.2% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.4%, which this flight trails by 3 points.

AA 1253 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
AA 1253thin sample	311	71.2%	87 min	0.64%	C+
All American Airlines on ORD–SFO	1,764	63.2%	73 min	1.76%	D
All carriers on ORD–SFO	5,627	67.6%	73 min	1.32%	C
American Airlines, whole network	986,297	74.4%	85 min	2.29%	C

Across the year

AA 1253 quarter by quarter

AA 1253 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 83.1% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 64.1%, a swing of 19 points on roughly 78 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 202589 flights83.1%
Oct–Dec 202565 flights64.6%
Jan–Mar 202666 flights64.1%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights69.2%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, AA 1253 did best on Tuesday at 82.6% on time and worst on Thursday at 60.5%. Each day rests on about 44 flights, so a gap of 22 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why AA 1253 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 7,707 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
49%
Carrier
28%
National Airspace System
20%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
0%

49% 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 7,707 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 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 7,707 delay minutes reported on AA 1253.

Cancellations are rare at 0.64%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

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. 13.3% 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.

At 1,846 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.

The same number turns up on three other city pairs in the data, including SFO to ORD (74), DTW to DFW (26) and BOS to DCA (21), but none flew often enough under AA 1253 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to ORD to SFO only.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 311 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 1253

For a booking, AA 1253 is a flight to put a long connection behind. 13.3% 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.

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