Flight number record
AA 4
American Airlines · Los Angeles to New York
- Route
- LAX → JFK
- Departs
- 15:20
- Flights
- 356
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 4, check with American Airlines.
AA 4 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 356 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so AA 4 runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 41 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 343 completed flights
Avg delay
96 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.53%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
11.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 356 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When AA 4 flies
AA 4 flies LAX to JFK without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 15:20, used on 80 of 356 flights, with 15:35 (52 flights) next.
- Departs 15:2080 flights22.5%
- Departs 15:3552 flights14.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 15:20 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and AA 4 runs level with that at 73.2%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
AA 4 next to LAX to JFK
Every carrier on LAX to JFK combined arrived on time 77.5% of the time across 10,289 flights, so AA 4 is 4 points behind it. American flew 3,303 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 74.9% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.7%, which this flight trails by 2 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA 4thin sample | 356 | 73.2% | 96 min | 2.53% | C |
| All American Airlines on LAX–JFK | 3,303 | 74.9% | 112 min | 2.66% | C |
| All carriers on LAX–JFK | 10,289 | 77.5% | 90 min | 2.90% | B |
| American Airlines, whole network | 988,892 | 74.7% | 85 min | 2.14% | C |
Across the year
AA 4 quarter by quarter
AA 4 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 83.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 57.9%, a swing of 25 points on roughly 71 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 202530 flights83.3%
- Oct–Dec 202590 flights77.5%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights73.8%
- Apr–Jun 202684 flights74.7%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights57.9%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
By weekday, AA 4 did best on Tuesday at 78.0% on time and worst on Sunday at 63.8%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late AA 4 runs when it is late
AA 4 often beats the schedule: 123 of 343 completed flights, 36%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 92 late arrivals split 26 under half an hour, 28 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 38 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early123 flights35.9%
- Within 15 min128 flights37.3%
- 15–29 min late26 flights7.6%
- 30–59 min late28 flights8.2%
- 1–2 hours late18 flights5.2%
- 2+ hours late20 flights5.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 343 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
21 of 90 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 23% of them. In the other direction, 23 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at JFK.
The worst days
Worst days for AA 4
The latest arrival of the period was on 7 February 2026, 14 hours 18 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 7 February 2026 | 14 hours 18 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 25 April 2026 | 10 hours 49 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 July 2026 | 7 hours 31 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 July 2026 | 6 hours 40 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 3 November 2025 | 6 hours 25 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why AA 4 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 8,798 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,798 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 46 to one. The split is drawn from 8,798 delay minutes reported on AA 4.
Cancellations run at 2.53%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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
11.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection 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 356 flights under AA 4 in the data flew LAX to JFK. 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 4
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on AA 4: 2.53% of its 356 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
- LAX to JFK, every carrier and departure
- JFK to LAX, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 934 on the same route86.7%
- Delta Air Lines 960 on the same route83.1%
- American Airlines 118 on the same route83.6%
- American Airlines 307 on the same route74.6%
- Delta Air Lines 958 on the same route82.4%
- American Airlines 274 on the same route57.9%
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.