Carrier route record

AAJAX→ORD

American Airlines · Jacksonville to Chicago

Flights: 465
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 23%
Carriers: 6

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

American on JAX to ORD lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 2.1 hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 465 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on JAX to ORD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

77.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 451 completed flights

Avg delay

126 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.80%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.3%

Every carrier on JAX to ORD, 2,062 flights

These figures cover 465 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% 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 JAX to ORD

American flew 465 of the 2,062 flights on JAX to ORD, about 23% of it. Its 77.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 100.0% to SkyWest at 72.2%. Four of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on JAX to ORD
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
PSA Airlinesthin sample	1	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
Republic Airwaysthin sample	317	79.3%	71 min	4.73%	B−
United Airlines	893	77.8%	92 min	0.67%	B+
American Airlines (this page)	465	77.6%	126 min	2.80%	B
Envoy Airthin sample	236	75.2%	67 min	0.42%	B+
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	150	72.2%	64 min	3.33%	C−

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 31 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am257 flights85.8%
8am–11am24 flights—
11am–2pm83 flights74.1%
2pm–5pm22 flights—
5pm–8pm77 flights54.7%
8pm–5am2 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: 54.7% on time, against 85.8% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 257 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on JAX to ORD through the year

Jul–Sep 2025192 flights75.8%
Oct–Dec 2025132 flights78.0%
Jan–Mar 202652 flights90.0%
Apr–Jun 202689 flights73.5%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 77.6% on time across 465 flights.

American on JAX to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 90.0% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 73.5%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 116 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.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.1%. 15 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. Carrier accounts for 50% of the 13,000 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.

Carrier
50%
Late-arriving aircraft
35%
National Airspace System
12%
Extreme weather
3%

35% 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 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 12,745 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 6,328 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations run at 2.80%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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 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. 9.5% 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 864 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 62.3% on time across 464 flights, 15 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 15 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 465 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 JAX to ORD

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.80% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 2.1 hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 451 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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