Flight number record
AA 234
American Airlines · San Francisco to New York
- Route
- SFO → JFK
- Departs
- 06:15
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 234, check with American Airlines.
AA 234 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 14 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 365 flights, with a median arrival 16 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, AA 234's record is 14 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 136 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
90.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 351 completed flights
Avg delay
206 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.47%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 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 234 flies
AA 234 flies SFO to JFK without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:15, used on 127 of 365 flights, with 07:05 (43 flights) and 07:30 (37 flights) next.
- Departs 06:15127 flights34.8%
- Departs 07:0543 flights11.8%
- Departs 07:3037 flights10.1%
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 06:15 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and AA 234 runs level with that at 90.9%. 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 234 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 234 is 13 points ahead of 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 beats by 16 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA 234 | 365 | 90.9% | 206 min | 2.47% | A |
| 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 234 quarter by quarter
AA 234 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 84.2%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 73 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 flights96.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights93.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights87.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights94.4%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights84.2%
Scale runs 75% to 100%.
By weekday, AA 234 did best on Monday at 96.0% on time and worst on Saturday at 82.0%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late AA 234 runs when it is late
AA 234 often beats the schedule: 188 of 351 completed flights, 54%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When AA 234 is late it tends to be very late: 18 of its 32 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 9 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early188 flights53.6%
- Within 15 min131 flights37.3%
- 15–29 min late9 flights2.6%
- 30–59 min late5 flights1.4%
- 1–2 hours late9 flights2.6%
- 2+ hours late9 flights2.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 351 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
6 of 26 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 23% of them. 12 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for AA 234
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 January 2026, 26 hours 1 minute behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 January 2026 | 26 hours 1 minute | Carrier |
| 9 October 2025 | 25 hours 31 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 June 2026 | 8 hours 44 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 March 2026 | 6 hours 57 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 February 2026 | 6 hours 21 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why AA 234 runs late
Carrier accounts for 80% of the 6,592 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 80%Carrier
- 8%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 80%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,245 of the 6,592 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,592 delay minutes reported on AA 234.
Cancellations sit at 2.47% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.37%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 3.4 hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 365 flights under AA 234 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. 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 234
For a booking, read AA 234 as 90.9% on time with 2.47% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to JFK, every carrier and departure
- JFK to SFO, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 405 on the same route88.8%
- JetBlue Airways 416 on the same route76.7%
- Delta Air Lines 383 on the same route87.1%
- JetBlue Airways 816 on the same route77.0%
- Delta Air Lines 668 on the same route73.1%
- American Airlines 16 on the same route71.9%
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) 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
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
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.