Flight number record
AA 2903
American Airlines · Washington to Chicago
- Route
- DCA → ORD
- Departs
- 06:00
- Flights
- 337
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 2903, check with American Airlines.
AA 2903 lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 337 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
77.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 312 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
7.42%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
9.9%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 337 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% 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 2903 flies
AA 2903 flies DCA to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:00, used on 141 of 337 flights, with 22:45 (60 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 06:00141 flights41.8%
- Departs 22:4560 flights17.8%
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 2903 runs 12 points worse at 77.6%. 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 2903 next to DCA to ORD
Every carrier on DCA to ORD combined arrived on time 74.3% of the time across 6,992 flights, so AA 2903 is 3 points ahead of it. American flew 2,301 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 74.7% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.4%, which this flight beats by 3 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA 2903thin sample | 337 | 77.6% | 87 min | 7.42% | B− |
| All American Airlines on DCA–ORD | 2,301 | 74.7% | 91 min | 4.00% | C− |
| All carriers on DCA–ORD | 6,992 | 74.3% | 88 min | 3.40% | C− |
| American Airlines, whole network | 986,297 | 74.4% | 85 min | 2.29% | C |
Across the year
AA 2903 quarter by quarter
AA 2903 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 86.1% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 71.8%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 84 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 202587 flights73.0%
- Oct–Dec 202574 flights79.7%
- Jan–Mar 202685 flights86.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights71.8%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, AA 2903 did best on Tuesday at 84.1% on time and worst on Friday at 70.5%. Each day rests on about 48 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why AA 2903 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 6,052 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
- 34%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 2%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 6,052 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 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 6,052 delay minutes reported on AA 2903.
Cancellations run at 7.42%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twelve 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.9% 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.
The 612 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The same number turns up on two other city pairs in the data, including JAX to DCA (19) and LAX to CLT (2), but none flew often enough under AA 2903 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to DCA to ORD only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 337 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 2903
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on AA 2903: 7.42% of its 337 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs an hour and a half, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to DCA, the return direction
- United Airlines 1793 on the same route91.4%
- American Airlines 1200 on the same route74.4%
- United Airlines 2201 on the same route91.8%
- United Airlines 2148 on the same route51.5%
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) 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.