Flight number record

AA 2551

American Airlines · Houston to Dallas-Fort Worth

Route: IAH → DFW
Departs: 06:00
Flights: 365
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 2551, check with American Airlines.

AA 2551 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 10 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 2.8 hours. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, AA 2551's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 100 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

87.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 348 completed flights

Avg delay

166 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

4.66%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

8.3%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% 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 2551 flies

AA 2551 flies IAH to DFW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:00, used on 155 of 365 flights, with 05:00 (152 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 06:00155 flights42.5%
Departs 05:00152 flights41.6%

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 06:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and AA 2551 runs level with that at 87.6%. 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 2551 next to IAH to DFW

Every carrier on IAH to DFW combined arrived on time 75.0% of the time across 5,779 flights, so AA 2551 is 13 points ahead of it. American flew 2,464 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 73.2% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.4%, which this flight beats by 13 points.

AA 2551 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
AA 2551	365	87.6%	166 min	4.66%	A−
All American Airlines on IAH–DFW	2,464	73.2%	121 min	3.65%	C−
All carriers on IAH–DFW	5,779	75.0%	99 min	2.80%	B
American Airlines, whole network	986,297	74.4%	85 min	2.29%	C

Across the year

AA 2551 quarter by quarter

AA 2551 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 93.8% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 83.1%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 91 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 flights83.1%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights89.0%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights93.8%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights85.1%

Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, AA 2551 did best on Wednesday at 92.2% on time and worst on Saturday at 80.0%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 12 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why AA 2551 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 67% of the 7,115 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.

Carrier
67%
Late-arriving aircraft
13%
Extreme weather
12%
National Airspace System
8%

Extreme weather accounts for 12% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the quarterly figures above are the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 7,115 delay minutes reported on AA 2551.

Cancellations run at 4.66%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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

8.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 2.8 hours, which a normal layover absorbs.

Every one of the 365 flights under AA 2551 in the data flew IAH 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. 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 2551

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on AA 2551: 4.66% of its 365 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about 2.8 hours, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures