Carrier route record
AALAX→JFK
American Airlines · Los Angeles to New York
- Flights
- 3,303
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 32%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on LAX to JFK sits in the middle of the pack with a C. 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 close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 3,303 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 3,367 at 79.4% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate American on LAX to JFK from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,181 completed flights
Avg delay
112 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.66%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
77.5%
Every carrier on LAX to JFK, 10,289 flights
These figures cover 3,303 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% 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 LAX to JFK
American flew 3,303 of the 10,289 flights on LAX to JFK, about 32% of it. Its 74.9% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 81.2% to American at 74.9%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 140 | 81.2% | 56 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,367 | 79.4% | 87 min | 2.61% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 3,479 | 77.9% | 70 min | 3.48% | B− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 3,303 | 74.9% | 112 min | 2.66% | C |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.5% 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.
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on LAX to JFK
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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 21 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am698 flights85.0%
- 8am–11am730 flights71.1%
- 11am–2pm849 flights64.3%
- 2pm–5pm306 flights76.1%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am720 flights81.2%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 64.3% on time against 85.0% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 849 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on LAX to JFK through the year
February is the weak month at 64.6% on time, against 86.4% in April. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. August was the busiest month here, with 310 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.6%, a spread of 5 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on LAX to JFK runs when it is late
American on LAX to JFK often beats the schedule: 1,156 of 3,181 completed flights, 36%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 797 late arrivals split 236 under half an hour, 201 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 360 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early1,156 flights36.3%
- Within 15 min1,228 flights38.6%
- 15–29 min late236 flights7.4%
- 30–59 min late201 flights6.3%
- 1–2 hours late173 flights5.4%
- 2+ hours late187 flights5.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 3,181 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
143 of 726 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. In the other direction, 214 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 JFK.
The worst days
Worst days for American on LAX to JFK
The latest arrival of the period was on 21 January 2026, 37 hours 14 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 21 January 2026 | 37 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 February 2026 | 32 hours 6 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 7 January 2026 | 27 hours 36 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 July 2026 | 22 hours 47 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 22 December 2025 | 18 hours 9 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 89,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 89,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 44 to one. The split is drawn from 89,170 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 85.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.66%, against 1.89% 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
11.3% 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.
At 2,475 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 78.6% on time across 3,298 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 3,303 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 LAX to JFK
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 86.4% on time and February 64.6%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of February before you think about anything else. 3,181 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to JFK, every carrier
- American on JFK to LAX, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on LAX to JFK81.2%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to JFK79.4%
- JetBlue Airways on LAX to JFK77.9%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) 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.