Carrier route record
AAFLL→ORD
American Airlines · Fort Lauderdale to Chicago
- Flights
- 846
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 25%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on FLL to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 846 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,479 at 74.7% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on FLL to ORD runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 76 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 824 completed flights
Avg delay
103 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.54%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
69.1%
Every carrier on FLL to ORD, 3,422 flights
These figures cover 846 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.9% 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.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on FLL to ORD
American flew 846 of the 3,422 flights on FLL to ORD, about 25% of it. Its 70.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 69.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 74.7% to Southwest at 38.7%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 74.7% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 61.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 913 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,479 | 74.7% | 81 min | 0.74% | C+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 846 | 70.0% | 103 min | 1.54% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 913 | 61.3% | 73 min | 3.29% | D− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 151 | 61.1% | 148 min | 3.31% | D− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 33 | 38.7% | 98 min | 3.03% | F− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 3.3% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 32 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am172 flights83.5%
- 8am–11am16 flights—
- 11am–2pm387 flights75.0%
- 2pm–5pm49 flights59.2%
- 5pm–8pm219 flights51.4%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 51.4% on time, against 83.5% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 387 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on FLL to ORD through the year
June is the worst month at 52.0% on time, 38 points below September, the best at 90.0%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. December was the busiest month here, with 109 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.0%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 25,000 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
50% 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 25,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 25,376 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 83.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.54% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.06%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.9% 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.
The 1,182 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 71.7% on time across 846 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 846 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 American on FLL to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 846 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 70.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 824 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FLL to ORD, every carrier
- American on ORD to FLL, the return leg
- United Airlines on FLL to ORD74.7%
- Spirit Airlines on FLL to ORD61.3%
- Frontier Airlines on FLL to ORD61.1%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.