Carrier route record
AAMIA→SFO
American Airlines · Miami to San Francisco
- Flights
- 1,137
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 65%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on MIA to SFO sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,137 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on MIA to SFO runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 81 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,125 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.88%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
70.7%
Every carrier on MIA to SFO, 1,740 flights
These figures cover 1,137 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% 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 MIA to SFO
American flew 1,137 of the 1,740 flights on MIA to SFO, most of the route. Its 69.2% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 70.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 73.7% to American at 69.2%.
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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 603 | 73.7% | 74 min | 0.17% | C+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,137 | 69.2% | 65 min | 0.88% | C+ |
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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 32 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am232 flights90.9%
- 8am–11am129 flights81.4%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm52 flights71.2%
- 5pm–8pm505 flights58.7%
- 8pm–5am219 flights62.3%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.7% on time, against 90.9% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 505 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on MIA to SFO through the year
July is the worst month at 50.8% on time, 35 points below March, the best at 85.6%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 61.0%, a spread of 20 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on MIA to SFO runs when it is late
American on MIA to SFO often beats the schedule: 390 of 1,125 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 347 late arrivals split 103 under half an hour, 124 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 120 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early390 flights34.7%
- Within 15 min388 flights34.5%
- 15–29 min late103 flights9.2%
- 30–59 min late124 flights11.0%
- 1–2 hours late80 flights7.1%
- 2+ hours late40 flights3.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,125 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
74 of 348 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. In the other direction, 73 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 SFO.
The worst days
Worst days for American on MIA to SFO
The latest arrival of the period was on 18 December 2025, 13 hours 3 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in July 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 18 December 2025 | 13 hours 3 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 July 2026 | 9 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 July 2026 | 8 hours 33 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 January 2026 | 8 hours 10 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 12 July 2026 | 4 hours 54 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
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 23,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 22,624 reported delay minutes.
33% 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 7,443 minutes out of 23,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.88%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
10.7% 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 2,585 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 75.8% on time across 1,137 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,137 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 MIA to SFO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 85.6% on time and July 50.8%, a swing of 35 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,125 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MIA to SFO, every carrier
- American on SFO to MIA, the return leg
- United Airlines on MIA to SFO73.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.