Carrier route record

AAJFK→ORD

American Airlines · New York to Chicago

Flights: 552
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 27%
Carriers: 5

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

American on JFK to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 552 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 759 at 76.8% on time.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on JFK to ORD runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 46 extra late arrivals.

On time

73.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 518 completed flights

Avg delay

89 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

5.07%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

71.5%

Every carrier on JFK to ORD, 2,013 flights

These figures cover 552 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 JFK to ORD

American flew 552 of the 2,013 flights on JFK to ORD, about 27% of it. Its 73.0% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 76.8% to Frontier at 51.4%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 76.8% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 67.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 572 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on JFK to ORD
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airways	759	76.8%	83 min	5.53%	B−
American Airlines (this page)	552	73.0%	89 min	5.07%	C−
JetBlue Airways	572	67.7%	82 min	3.85%	C−
Delta Air Linesthin sample	14	61.5%	266 min	0.00%	D+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	116	51.4%	101 min	4.31%	F−

Republic Airways cancels 5.5% 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 18 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am64 flights66.1%
8am–11am215 flights81.7%
11am–2pm105 flights75.2%
2pm–5pm151 flights63.3%
5pm–8pm16 flights—
8pm–5am1 flights—

Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 81.7% of the time, against 63.3% for the afternoon window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 215 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on JFK to ORD through the year

Jul–Sep 2025100 flights76.3%
Oct–Dec 2025231 flights63.5%
Jan–Mar 2026103 flights76.1%
Apr–Jun 2026118 flights86.5%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. 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 73.0% on time across 552 flights.

American on JFK to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 86.5% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 63.5%, a swing of 23 points on roughly 138 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.9%. 14 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 49% of the 12,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
49%
Carrier
27%
National Airspace System
20%
Extreme weather
4%
Security
0%

49% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 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 12,409 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 81.7% on time here.

Cancellations run at 5.07%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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. 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 740 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 61.7% on time across 551 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 552 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 JFK to ORD

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.07% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 518 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