Flight number record
AA 255
American Airlines · New York to Los Angeles
- Route
- JFK → LAX
- Departs
- 09:30
- Flights
- 362
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 255, check with American Airlines.
AA 255 lands a B−, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 362 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 350 completed flights
Avg delay
110 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.31%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 362 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When AA 255 flies
AA 255 flies JFK to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 09:30, used on 118 of 362 flights, with 14:40 (61 flights) and 09:00 (44 flights) next.
- Departs 09:30118 flights32.6%
- Departs 14:4061 flights16.9%
- Departs 09:0044 flights12.2%
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 09:30 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and AA 255 runs 6 points worse at 78.3%. 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 255 next to JFK to LAX
Every carrier on JFK to LAX combined arrived on time 75.4% of the time across 10,285 flights, so AA 255 is 3 points ahead of it. American flew 3,298 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 78.6% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.7%, which this flight beats by 4 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA 255thin sample | 362 | 78.3% | 110 min | 3.31% | B− |
| All American Airlines on JFK–LAX | 3,298 | 78.6% | 96 min | 2.61% | B |
| All carriers on JFK–LAX | 10,285 | 75.4% | 78 min | 2.78% | B |
| American Airlines, whole network | 988,892 | 74.7% | 85 min | 2.14% | C |
Across the year
AA 255 quarter by quarter
AA 255 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 72.4%, a swing of 21 points on roughly 72 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 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights83.7%
- Jan–Mar 202688 flights73.8%
- Apr–Jun 202690 flights75.6%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights72.4%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
By weekday, AA 255 did best on Friday at 84.0% on time and worst on Thursday at 68.6%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 15 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late AA 255 runs when it is late
AA 255 often beats the schedule: 152 of 350 completed flights, 43%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 76 late arrivals split 33 under half an hour, 15 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 28 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early152 flights43.4%
- Within 15 min122 flights34.9%
- 15–29 min late33 flights9.4%
- 30–59 min late15 flights4.3%
- 1–2 hours late13 flights3.7%
- 2+ hours late15 flights4.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 350 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
18 of 61 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 30% of them. In the other direction, 33 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 255
The latest arrival of the period was on 12 May 2026, 13 hours 21 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in May 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 12 May 2026 | 13 hours 21 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 7 May 2026 | 12 hours 57 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 May 2026 | 12 hours 48 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 January 2026 | 10 hours 5 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 April 2026 | 7 hours 38 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why AA 255 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 60% of the 8,319 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
60% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,319 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 23 to one. The split is drawn from 8,319 delay minutes reported on AA 255.
Cancellations run at 3.31%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
8.0% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,475 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 362 flights under AA 255 in the data flew JFK 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. 362 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 255
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on AA 255: 3.31% of its 362 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs close to two hours, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- JFK to LAX, every carrier and departure
- LAX to JFK, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 738 on the same route72.7%
- American Airlines 171 on the same route88.1%
- Delta Air Lines 773 on the same route78.6%
- American Airlines 117 on the same route69.1%
- American Airlines 341 on the same route76.4%
- American Airlines 300 on the same route69.8%
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) 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
- 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.