Flight number record
AA 1966
American Airlines · Washington to Los Angeles
- Route
- DCA → LAX
- Departs
- 08:30
- Flights
- 364
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 1966, check with American Airlines.
AA 1966 lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, AA 1966's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 52 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 355 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.82%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
2.8%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 364 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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.
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Schedule
When AA 1966 flies
AA 1966 flies DCA to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:30, used on 93 of 364 flights, with 08:40 (70 flights) and 08:35 (64 flights) next.
- Departs 08:3093 flights25.5%
- Departs 08:4070 flights19.2%
- Departs 08:3564 flights17.6%
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 08:30 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and AA 1966 runs level with that at 82.5%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
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Against the route
AA 1966 next to DCA to LAX
Every carrier on DCA to LAX combined arrived on time 75.6% of the time across 1,454 flights, so AA 1966 is 7 points ahead of it. American flew 728 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 77.3% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.7%, which this flight beats by 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA 1966thin sample | 364 | 82.5% | 62 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| All American Airlines on DCA–LAX | 728 | 77.3% | 74 min | 1.24% | B |
| All carriers on DCA–LAX | 1,454 | 75.6% | 78 min | 1.65% | B |
| American Airlines, whole network | 988,892 | 74.7% | 85 min | 2.14% | C |
Across the year
AA 1966 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter AA 1966 held fairly steady: 76.7% in Jul–Sep 2025, 81.3% in Oct–Dec 2025, 84.9% in Jan–Mar 2026, 86.4% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 78.3% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 10 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights76.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights81.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights84.9%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights86.4%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights78.3%
Scale runs 70% to 90%.
By weekday, AA 1966 did best on Monday at 92.0% on time and worst on Sunday at 76.5%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 16 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late AA 1966 runs when it is late
AA 1966 often beats the schedule: 148 of 355 completed flights, 42%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 31 of the 62 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 10 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early148 flights41.7%
- Within 15 min145 flights40.8%
- 15–29 min late31 flights8.7%
- 30–59 min late21 flights5.9%
- 1–2 hours late3 flights0.8%
- 2+ hours late7 flights2.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 355 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
11 of 42 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 26% of them. In the other direction, 31 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 LAX.
The worst days
Worst days for AA 1966
The latest arrival of the period was on 21 February 2026, 12 hours 47 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 21 February 2026 | 12 hours 47 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 August 2026 | 8 hours 24 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 August 2026 | 5 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 March 2026 | 3 hours 4 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 3 January 2026 | 2 hours 9 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why AA 1966 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 3,871 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,578 of the 3,871 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,871 delay minutes reported on AA 1966.
Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, below the national 1.89% 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 2,311 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 364 flights under AA 1966 in the data flew DCA to LAX. 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. 364 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 1966
For a booking, read AA 1966 as 82.5% on time with 0.82% cancelled over 364 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to LAX, every carrier and departure
- LAX to DCA, the return direction
- Alaska Airlines 5 on the same route70.5%
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) 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
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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 ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.