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DelayAtlas

Carrier route record

AAORD→BZN

American Airlines · Chicago to Bozeman

Flights
445
Period
September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route
36%
Carriers
4
D+GRADE

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

American on ORD to BZN draws a D+. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 445 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on ORD to BZN runs 13 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 134 extra late arrivals.

Key figures

On time

63.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 440 completed flights

Avg delay

64 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.67%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

68.2%

Every carrier on ORD to BZN, 1,252 flights

These figures cover 445 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.

Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.

Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on ORD to BZN

American flew 445 of the 1,252 flights on ORD to BZN, about 36% of it. Its 63.9% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 68.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 71.6% to Envoy at 55.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on ORD to BZN
AirlineFlightsOn timeAvg delayCancelledGrade
United Airlines72071.6%70 min0.56%C+
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample4668.9%70 min0.00%C+
American Airlines (this page)44563.9%64 min0.67%D+
Envoy Airthin sample4155.0%31 min0.00%D+

Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.

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 half a point between the best and worst carrier.

  • 5am–8am—
  • 8am–11am272 flights66.3%
  • 11am–2pm108 flights68.9%
  • 2pm–5pm—
  • 5pm–8pm56 flights48.2%
  • 8pm–5am9 flights—

Scale runs 40% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 48.2% on time, against 68.9% for the 11am–2pm 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 272 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on ORD to BZN through the year

On-time rate by calendar month60J58F37M—A—M68J62J60A81S78O—N—D
Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, March worst

September is the best month on the calendar at 80.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 54.4%, a spread of 27 points.

On-time rate by day of the week68.1Mon81.1Tue72.5Wed61.2Thu54.4Fri57.6Sat57.6Sun
Monday: 68.1 percent on time. Tuesday: 81.1 percent on time. Wednesday: 72.5 percent on time. Thursday: 61.2 percent on time. Friday: 54.4 percent on time. Saturday: 57.6 percent on time. Sunday: 57.6 percent on time

Arrival by arrival

How late American on ORD to BZN runs when it is late

The 159 late arrivals split 49 under half an hour, 40 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 70 an hour or more.

  • 15+ min early86 flights19.5%
  • Within 15 min195 flights44.3%
  • 15–29 min late49 flights11.1%
  • 30–59 min late40 flights9.1%
  • 1–2 hours late57 flights13.0%
  • 2+ hours late13 flights3.0%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 440 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

24 of 132 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. In the other direction, 51 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 BZN.

The worst days

Worst days for American on ORD to BZN

The latest arrival of the period was on 5 March 2026, 12 hours 51 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.

The latest arrivals of American on ORD to BZN in the period
DateArrived late byLargest filed cause
5 March 202612 hours 51 minutesLate-arriving aircraft
14 January 20263 hours 52 minutesLate-arriving aircraft
19 June 20263 hours 26 minutesLate-arriving aircraft
26 January 20263 hours 12 minutesLate-arriving aircraft
24 July 20262 hours 47 minutesCarrier

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 10,000 reported delay minutes.

  • Late-arriving aircraft
    39%
  • National Airspace System
    31%
  • Carrier
    24%
  • Extreme weather
    6%

39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 10,157 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.67%, 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

15.9% 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 1,185 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 runs 66.4% on time across 444 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 445 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 ORD to BZN

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 445 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 63.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 440 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Related

Where to go next

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.