Flight number record
AA 2261
American Airlines · St. Louis to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Route
- STL → DFW
- Departs
- 05:20
- Flights
- 360
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 2261, check with American Airlines.
AA 2261 earns an A−. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 15 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 3.4 hours. That rests on 360 flights, with a median arrival 16 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, AA 2261's record is 15 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 152 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
92.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 347 completed flights
Avg delay
202 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.06%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.7%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 360 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 16 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 2261 flies
AA 2261 flies STL to DFW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 05:20, used on 56 of 360 flights, with 05:12 (54 flights) next.
- Departs 05:2056 flights15.6%
- Departs 05:1254 flights15.0%
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 05:20 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and AA 2261 runs 3 points better at 92.5%. 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 2261 next to STL to DFW
Every carrier on STL to DFW combined arrived on time 76.2% of the time across 2,391 flights, so AA 2261 is 16 points ahead of it. American flew 1,878 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.3% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.7%, which this flight beats by 18 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA 2261thin sample | 360 | 92.5% | 202 min | 3.06% | A− |
| All American Airlines on STL–DFW | 1,878 | 76.3% | 119 min | 3.14% | B− |
| All carriers on STL–DFW | 2,391 | 76.2% | 114 min | 3.05% | B− |
| American Airlines, whole network | 988,892 | 74.7% | 85 min | 2.14% | C |
Across the year
AA 2261 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter AA 2261 held fairly steady: 92.0% in Oct–Dec 2025, 89.3% in Jan–Mar 2026, 93.1% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 96.7% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 7 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202529 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202589 flights92.0%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights89.3%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights93.1%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights96.7%
Scale runs 80% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, AA 2261 did best on Friday at 100.0% on time and worst on Sunday at 87.8%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 12 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late AA 2261 runs when it is late
AA 2261 often beats the schedule: 194 of 347 completed flights, 56%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 26 late arrivals split 9 under half an hour, 4 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 13 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early194 flights55.9%
- Within 15 min127 flights36.6%
- 15–29 min late9 flights2.6%
- 30–59 min late4 flights1.2%
- 1–2 hours late4 flights1.2%
- 2+ hours late9 flights2.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 347 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
5 of 26 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. Only 5 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for AA 2261
The latest arrival of the period was on 9 November 2025, 26 hours 35 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 9 November 2025 | 26 hours 35 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 January 2026 | 15 hours 13 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 March 2026 | 8 hours 19 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 August 2026 | 7 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 March 2026 | 5 hours | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why AA 2261 runs late
Carrier accounts for 54% of the 5,243 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%National Airspace System
34% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 5,243 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 34 to one. The split is drawn from 5,243 delay minutes reported on AA 2261.
Cancellations run at 3.06%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.7% 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.
The 550 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.
Every one of the 360 flights under AA 2261 in the data flew STL 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. 360 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 2261
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on AA 2261: 3.06% of its 360 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about 3.4 hours, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- STL to DFW, every carrier and departure
- DFW to STL, the return direction
- American Airlines 1410 on the same route81.2%
- St. Louis Lambert International (STL) delay statistics
- 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
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.