Carrier route record
AAIAD→LAX
American Airlines · Washington to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 120
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 5%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on IAD to LAX sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 120 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate American on IAD to LAX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 120 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
84.1%
Every carrier on IAD to LAX, 2,460 flights
These figures cover 120 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on IAD to LAX
American flew 120 of the 2,460 flights on IAD to LAX, about 5% of it. Its 75.0% on time is 9 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 84.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 84.6% to American at 75.0%.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,340 | 84.6% | 61 min | 0.77% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page)thin sample | 120 | 75.0% | 53 min | 0.00% | B+ |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 120 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split American's IAD to LAX record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 75.0% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
American on IAD to LAX through the year
- Apr–Jun 202684 flights72.6%
- Jul–Sep 202636 flights80.6%
Scale runs 65% to 85%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 75.0% on time across 120 flights.
Split by quarter, American on IAD to LAX logged 84 flights in Apr–Jun 2026 and 36 flights in Jul–Sep 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 75.0% annual figure is the one to use.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on IAD to LAX runs when it is late
American on IAD to LAX often beats the schedule: 44 of 120 completed flights, 37%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 16 of the 30 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 7 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early44 flights36.7%
- Within 15 min46 flights38.3%
- 15–29 min late16 flights13.3%
- 30–59 min late7 flights5.8%
- 1–2 hours late4 flights3.3%
- 2+ hours late3 flights2.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 120 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
4 of 24 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. In the other direction, 10 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 LAX.
The worst days
Worst days for American on IAD to LAX
The latest arrival of the period was on 7 July 2026, 6 hours 55 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 7 July 2026 | 6 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 July 2026 | 2 hours 22 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 May 2026 | 2 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 20 May 2026 | 1 hour 8 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 August 2026 | 1 hour 6 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 50% of the 1,596 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 795 of the 1,596 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,596 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 75.0% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,288 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.
The return leg runs 76.5% on time across 120 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. 120 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 IAD to LAX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 120 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 75.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 120 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IAD to LAX, every carrier
- American on LAX to IAD, the return leg
- United Airlines on IAD to LAX84.6%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
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.