Carrier route record
AAJFK→SFO
American Airlines · New York to San Francisco
- Flights
- 1,448
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 22%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on JFK to SFO 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 an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,448 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, JetBlue Airways, flew 1,945 at 76.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on JFK to SFO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,408 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.56%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.1%
Every carrier on JFK to SFO, 6,730 flights
These figures cover 1,448 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on JFK to SFO
American flew 1,448 of the 6,730 flights on JFK to SFO, about 22% of it. Its 77.2% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 77.2% to Delta at 71.3%.
The three carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,448 | 77.2% | 66 min | 2.56% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,945 | 76.7% | 75 min | 2.01% | B |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,108 | 71.4% | 70 min | 1.81% | C |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,229 | 71.3% | 70 min | 1.48% | C |
No carrier stands out. JetBlue tops the table at 76.7%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on JFK to SFO
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 27 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am377 flights87.8%
- 8am–11am323 flights83.5%
- 11am–2pm34 flights70.6%
- 2pm–5pm64 flights60.9%
- 5pm–8pm299 flights75.5%
- 8pm–5am351 flights64.9%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.8% of the time, against 60.9% for the afternoon window. That is 27 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 377 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on JFK to SFO through the year
June is the worst month at 66.4% on time, 20 points below September, the best at 86.7%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 147 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 72.8%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 21,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%National Airspace System
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
39% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 8,169 minutes out of 21,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 21,055 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 87.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.56%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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
7.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,586 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.9% on time across 1,448 flights, 4 points above 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,448 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking American on JFK to SFO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 86.7% on time and June 66.4%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,408 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- JFK to SFO, every carrier
- American on SFO to JFK, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to SFO76.7%
- Alaska Airlines on JFK to SFO71.4%
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to SFO71.3%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.