Flight number record
AA 2131
American Airlines · Chicago to San Diego
- Route
- ORD → SAN
- Departs
- 10:05
- Flights
- 270
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 2131, check with American Airlines.
AA 2131 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 270 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so AA 2131 runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 65 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 266 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.11%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
10.2%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 270 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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 2131 flies
AA 2131 flies ORD to SAN without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 10:05, used on 86 of 270 flights, with 09:55 (73 flights) and 10:03 (30 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 10:0586 flights31.9%
- Departs 09:5573 flights27.0%
- Departs 10:0330 flights11.1%
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 10:05 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and AA 2131 runs 13 points worse at 71.1%. 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 2131 next to ORD to SAN
Every carrier on ORD to SAN combined arrived on time 71.2% of the time across 3,807 flights, so AA 2131 is about level with it. American flew 1,385 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 66.3% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.4%, which this flight trails by 3 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA 2131thin sample | 270 | 71.1% | 56 min | 1.11% | C |
| All American Airlines on ORD–SAN | 1,385 | 66.3% | 65 min | 1.73% | C |
| All carriers on ORD–SAN | 3,807 | 71.2% | 67 min | 1.18% | C |
| American Airlines, whole network | 986,297 | 74.4% | 85 min | 2.29% | C |
Across the year
AA 2131 quarter by quarter
AA 2131 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 78.3% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 66.7%, a swing of 12 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 flights78.3%
- Oct–Dec 202584 flights66.7%
- Jan–Mar 202688 flights69.0%
- Apr–Jun 20266 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, AA 2131 did best on Thursday at 80.0% on time and worst on Saturday at 51.5%. Each day rests on about 39 flights, so a gap of 29 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why AA 2131 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 4,335 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
45% 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 4,335 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 4,335 delay minutes reported on AA 2131.
Cancellations sit at 1.11% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.37%.
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. 10.2% 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 1,723 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.
AA 2131 is not only a ORD to SAN flight. It also flew SAN to ORD (266 flights, 63.2% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 270 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.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SAN to ORDthin sample | 266 | 63.2% | 66 min | 1.13% | D |
What to do with this
Booking AA 2131
For a booking, read AA 2131 as 71.1% on time with 1.11% cancelled over 270 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to SAN, every carrier and departure
- SAN to ORD, the return direction
- United Airlines 660 on the same route83.6%
- United Airlines 2683 on the same route80.0%
- American Airlines 1543 on the same route64.3%
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- San Diego International (SAN) 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
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.