Flight number record
AA 302
American Airlines · New York to Los Angeles
- Route
- JFK → LAX
- Departs
- 17:29
- Flights
- 361
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 302, check with American Airlines.
AA 302 sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 361 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
75.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 353 completed flights
Avg delay
115 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.22%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
12.5%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 361 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.5% 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 302 flies
AA 302 flies JFK to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 17:29, used on 131 of 361 flights, with 17:30 (59 flights) and 17:25 (55 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 17:29131 flights36.3%
- Departs 17:3059 flights16.3%
- Departs 17:2555 flights15.2%
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 17:29 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and AA 302 runs 7 points better at 75.1%. 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 302 next to JFK to LAX
Every carrier on JFK to LAX combined arrived on time 77.6% of the time across 10,284 flights, so AA 302 is 3 points behind it. American flew 3,237 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 80.3% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.4%, close to this flight's figure.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA 302thin sample | 361 | 75.1% | 115 min | 2.22% | B |
| All American Airlines on JFK–LAX | 3,237 | 80.3% | 95 min | 2.04% | B |
| All carriers on JFK–LAX | 10,284 | 77.6% | 77 min | 1.94% | B |
| American Airlines, whole network | 986,297 | 74.4% | 85 min | 2.29% | C |
Across the year
AA 302 quarter by quarter
AA 302 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 83.3% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 67.4%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 90 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 flights74.4%
- Oct–Dec 202589 flights67.4%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights75.0%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights83.3%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, AA 302 did best on Monday at 85.7% on time and worst on Sunday at 67.3%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 18 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why AA 302 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 10,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
51% 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 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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 10,153 delay minutes reported on AA 302.
Cancellations sit at 2.22% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
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. 12.5% 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 2,475 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 361 flights under AA 302 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. 361 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 302
For a booking, AA 302 is a flight to put a long connection behind. 12.5% of its completed flights arrived an hour or more late, which a short layover will not absorb. If the onward flight is on a separate ticket, the risk sits with you.
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 route74.6%
- American Airlines 117 on the same route71.1%
- American Airlines 171 on the same route88.5%
- Delta Air Lines 773 on the same route81.9%
- American Airlines 341 on the same route78.6%
- American Airlines 255 on the same route82.5%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.