Flight number record
AA 1561
American Airlines · Grand Rapids to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Route
- GRR → DFW
- Departs
- 07:00
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 1561, check with American Airlines.
AA 1561 sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 2.4 hours behind schedule. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so AA 1561 runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 40 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 349 completed flights
Avg delay
144 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.84%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
11.7%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.7% 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 1561 flies
AA 1561 flies GRR to DFW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:00, used on 147 of 365 flights, with 07:10 (61 flights) and 07:02 (37 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 07:00147 flights40.3%
- Departs 07:1061 flights16.7%
- Departs 07:0237 flights10.1%
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 07:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and AA 1561 runs 16 points worse at 73.6%. 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 1561 next to GRR to DFW
Every carrier on GRR to DFW combined arrived on time 68.2% of the time across 1,017 flights, so AA 1561 is 5 points ahead of it. American flew 994 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 67.8% 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 1561 | 365 | 73.6% | 144 min | 3.84% | C− |
| All American Airlines on GRR–DFW | 994 | 67.8% | 122 min | 3.32% | C− |
| All carriers on GRR–DFW | 1,017 | 68.2% | 122 min | 3.54% | C− |
| American Airlines, whole network | 986,297 | 74.4% | 85 min | 2.29% | C |
Across the year
AA 1561 quarter by quarter
AA 1561 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 82.6% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 62.8%, a swing of 20 points on roughly 91 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 flights79.5%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights69.7%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights62.8%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights82.6%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, AA 1561 did best on Wednesday at 84.0% on time and worst on Saturday at 64.6%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 19 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why AA 1561 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 57% of the 13,000 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.
- 57%Carrier
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%Extreme weather
- 12%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 12% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the quarterly figures above are the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 13,268 delay minutes reported on AA 1561.
Cancellations run at 3.84%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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. 11.7% 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 931 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 365 flights under AA 1561 in the data flew GRR 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. 365 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 1561
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on AA 1561: 3.84% of its 365 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
- GRR to DFW, every carrier and departure
- DFW to GRR, the return direction
- 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
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.