Flight number record

AA 4

American Airlines · Los Angeles to New York

Route: LAX → JFK
Departs: 15:20
Flights: 356
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 4, check with American Airlines.

AA 4 lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About 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 356 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

On time

76.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 346 completed flights

Avg delay

82 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.53%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

8.7%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 356 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% 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 4 flies

AA 4 flies LAX to JFK without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 15:20, used on 142 of 356 flights, with 15:35 (52 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 15:20142 flights39.9%
Departs 15:3552 flights14.6%

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 15:20 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 72.4%, and AA 4 runs 4 points better at 76.6%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

AA 4 next to LAX to JFK

Every carrier on LAX to JFK combined arrived on time 79.1% of the time across 10,287 flights, so AA 4 is 3 points behind it. American flew 3,242 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%, which this flight beats by 2 points.

AA 4 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
AA 4thin sample	356	76.6%	82 min	2.53%	B
All American Airlines on LAX–JFK	3,242	76.7%	112 min	2.19%	B
All carriers on LAX–JFK	10,287	79.1%	92 min	2.04%	B
American Airlines, whole network	986,297	74.4%	85 min	2.29%	C

Across the year

AA 4 quarter by quarter

Quarter by quarter AA 4 held fairly steady: 80.0% in Jul–Sep 2025, 77.5% in Oct–Dec 2025, 73.8% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 74.7% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 6 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Jul–Sep 202592 flights80.0%
Oct–Dec 202590 flights77.5%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights73.8%
Apr–Jun 202684 flights74.7%

Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, AA 4 ranged from 72.3% on Sunday to 81.6% on Monday. With about 51 flights behind each day, a spread of 9 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.

Delay causes

Why AA 4 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 6,665 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
45%
Carrier
37%
National Airspace System
18%
Security
0%

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 6,665 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 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 6,665 delay minutes reported on AA 4.

Cancellations run at 2.53%, against 1.81% 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

8.7% 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 an hour and a half, 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 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.

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