Carrier route record
AAJFK→ORD
American Airlines · New York to Chicago
- Flights
- 542
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 25%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 542 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 830 at 76.3% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on JFK to ORD runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 42 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 509 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.17%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
70.4%
Every carrier on JFK to ORD, 2,136 flights
These figures cover 542 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on JFK to ORD
American flew 542 of the 2,136 flights on JFK to ORD, about 25% of it. Its 73.1% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 76.3% 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 76.3% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 64.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 634 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 830 | 76.3% | 77 min | 5.78% | B− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 542 | 73.1% | 91 min | 5.17% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 634 | 64.0% | 85 min | 7.57% | D− |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 14 | 61.5% | 266 min | 0.00% | D+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 116 | 51.4% | 101 min | 4.31% | F− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 7.6% 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.
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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 15 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am28 flights—
- 8am–11am215 flights81.7%
- 11am–2pm105 flights75.2%
- 2pm–5pm177 flights66.7%
- 5pm–8pm16 flights—
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 60% 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 66.7% for the afternoon window. That is 15 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 202528 flights—
- Oct–Dec 2025231 flights63.5%
- Jan–Mar 2026103 flights76.1%
- Apr–Jun 2026118 flights86.5%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights69.6%
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 73.1% on time across 542 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 136 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 78.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.6%, a spread of 15 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on JFK to ORD runs when it is late
American on JFK to ORD often beats the schedule: 168 of 509 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 137 late arrivals split 37 under half an hour, 35 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 65 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early168 flights33.0%
- Within 15 min204 flights40.1%
- 15–29 min late37 flights7.3%
- 30–59 min late35 flights6.9%
- 1–2 hours late34 flights6.7%
- 2+ hours late31 flights6.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 509 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 118 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 13 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 32 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 ORD.
The worst days
Worst days for American on JFK to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 22 October 2025, 10 hours 22 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 22 October 2025 | 10 hours 22 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 15 December 2025 | 8 hours 16 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 4 July 2026 | 7 hours 12 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 24 May 2026 | 6 hours 42 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 May 2026 | 6 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 12,423 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 5.17%, against 1.89% 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
12.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 60.5% on time across 541 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 542 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 5.17% 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. 509 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- JFK to ORD, every carrier
- American on ORD to JFK, the return leg
- Republic Airways on JFK to ORD76.3%
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to ORD64.0%
- Frontier Airlines on JFK to ORD51.4%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.