Flight number record

AA 297

American Airlines · Los Angeles to Honolulu

Route: LAX → HNL
Departs: 17:13
Flights: 356
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 297, check with American Airlines.

AA 297 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 356 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so AA 297 runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 45 extra late arrivals.

On time

73.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 353 completed flights

Avg delay

60 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.28%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

9.3%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 356 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% 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 297 flies

AA 297 flies LAX to HNL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 17:13, used on 54 of 356 flights, with 18:07 (46 flights) and 17:53 (41 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 17:1354 flights15.2%
Departs 18:0746 flights12.9%
Departs 17:5341 flights11.5%

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 17:13 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and AA 297 runs 5 points better at 73.1%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.

Against the route

AA 297 next to LAX to HNL

Every carrier on LAX to HNL combined arrived on time 76.9% of the time across 5,459 flights, so AA 297 is 4 points behind it. American flew 1,183 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.7% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.4%, close to this flight's figure.

AA 297 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
AA 297thin sample	356	73.1%	60 min	0.28%	C+
All American Airlines on LAX–HNL	1,183	76.7%	57 min	0.17%	B+
All carriers on LAX–HNL	5,459	76.9%	73 min	0.49%	B+
American Airlines, whole network	986,297	74.4%	85 min	2.29%	C

Across the year

AA 297 quarter by quarter

AA 297 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 85.5% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 62.2%, a swing of 23 points on roughly 89 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 flights72.5%
Oct–Dec 202583 flights85.5%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights73.0%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights62.2%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, AA 297 did best on Wednesday at 81.2% on time and worst on Sunday at 59.6%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 22 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why AA 297 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 57% of the 5,725 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
57%
Carrier
27%
National Airspace System
16%
Security
0%

57% 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 5,725 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 57 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 5,725 delay minutes reported on AA 297.

Cancellations are rare at 0.28%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

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. 9.3% 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.

At 2,556 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 356 flights under AA 297 in the data flew LAX to HNL. 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. 356 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 297

For a booking, read AA 297 as 73.1% on time with 0.28% cancelled over 356 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.

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