Flight number record

AA 16

American Airlines · San Francisco to New York

Route: SFO → JFK
Departs: 10:22
Flights: 336
Period: September 2025 to August 2026

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 16, check with American Airlines.

AA 16 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 336 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so AA 16 runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 54 extra late arrivals.

On time

71.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 320 completed flights

Avg delay

84 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.38%

National rate is 1.89%

1 hour+ late

11.6%

National rate is 8.3%

These figures cover 336 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.

Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.

Schedule

When AA 16 flies

AA 16 flies SFO to JFK without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 10:22, used on 61 of 336 flights, with 10:35 (37 flights) and 11:00 (36 flights) next.

Departs 10:2261 flights18.2%
Departs 10:3537 flights11.0%
Departs 11:0036 flights10.7%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.

A 10:22 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and AA 16 runs 12 points worse at 71.9%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.

Against the route

AA 16 next to SFO to JFK

Every carrier on SFO to JFK combined arrived on time 78.0% of the time across 6,798 flights, so AA 16 is 6 points behind it. American flew 1,501 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 77.5% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.7%, which this flight trails by 3 points.

AA 16 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
AA 16thin sample	336	71.9%	84 min	2.38%	C
All American Airlines on SFO–JFK	1,501	77.5%	113 min	3.20%	B−
All carriers on SFO–JFK	6,798	78.0%	80 min	2.49%	B
American Airlines, whole network	988,892	74.7%	85 min	2.14%	C

Across the year

AA 16 quarter by quarter

AA 16 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 86.7% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 58.8%, a swing of 28 points on roughly 67 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 202530 flights86.7%
Oct–Dec 202583 flights79.3%
Jan–Mar 202678 flights76.7%
Apr–Jun 202683 flights58.8%
Jul–Sep 202662 flights65.5%

Scale runs 50% to 90%.

By weekday, AA 16 did best on Saturday at 84.4% on time and worst on Tuesday at 58.3%. Each day rests on about 48 flights, so a gap of 26 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Arrival by arrival

How late AA 16 runs when it is late

AA 16 often beats the schedule: 116 of 320 completed flights, 36%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 90 late arrivals split 29 under half an hour, 24 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 37 an hour or more.

15+ min early116 flights36.3%
Within 15 min114 flights35.6%
15–29 min late29 flights9.1%
30–59 min late24 flights7.5%
1–2 hours late25 flights7.8%
2+ hours late12 flights3.8%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 320 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

22 of 85 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 26% of them. In the other direction, 27 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at JFK.

The worst days

Worst days for AA 16

The latest arrival of the period was on 19 May 2026, 20 hours 26 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across May, February, October, April and July, with no single month standing out.

The latest arrivals of AA 16 in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
19 May 2026	20 hours 26 minutes	Carrier
8 February 2026	9 hours 29 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
30 October 2025	5 hours 14 minutes	National Airspace System
4 April 2026	5 hours 4 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
21 July 2026	3 hours 44 minutes	Extreme weather

Delay causes

Why AA 16 runs late

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 7,530 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
36%
Carrier
28%
Late-arriving aircraft
23%
Extreme weather
13%

Extreme weather accounts for 13% 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 2.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 7,530 delay minutes reported on AA 16.

Cancellations sit at 2.38% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 2.38%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

11.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

At 2,586 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.

Every one of the 336 flights under AA 16 in the data flew SFO to JFK. 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. 336 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 16

For a booking, AA 16 is one of the weaker ways to fly SFO to JFK: 6 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.

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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures