Flight number record

AA 306

American Airlines · New York to Los Angeles

Route: JFK → LAX
Departs: 16:30
Flights: 356
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 306, check with American Airlines.

AA 306 lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 356 flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, AA 306's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 40 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

81.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 347 completed flights

Avg delay

78 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.25%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

6.3%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 356 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 13 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Schedule

When AA 306 flies

AA 306 flies JFK to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 16:30, used on 229 of 356 flights, with 16:29 (124 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 16:30229 flights64.3%
Departs 16:29124 flights34.8%

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 16:30 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 72.4%, and AA 306 runs 9 points better at 81.6%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

AA 306 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 306 is 4 points ahead of 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%, which this flight beats by 7 points.

AA 306 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
AA 306thin sample	356	81.6%	78 min	2.25%	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 306 quarter by quarter

AA 306 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 87.8% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 76.1%, a swing of 12 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 202587 flights81.4%
Oct–Dec 202590 flights76.1%
Jan–Mar 202688 flights80.7%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights87.8%

Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, AA 306 did best on Monday at 89.6% on time and worst on Saturday at 75.0%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 15 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why AA 306 runs late

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 4,963 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
33%
Late-arriving aircraft
32%
National Airspace System
31%
Extreme weather
4%

No single cause dominates. carrier at 33%, late-arriving aircraft at 32% and national airspace system at 31% split the 4,963 reported delay minutes between them. An even spread like this usually means the operation is running close to its designed capacity with no one obvious weak point, and it is the hardest pattern for a traveller to route around. The split is drawn from 4,963 delay minutes reported on AA 306.

Cancellations sit at 2.25% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

6.3% 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 a little over an hour, 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 356 flights under AA 306 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. 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 306

For a booking, read AA 306 as 81.6% on time with 2.25% 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