Carrier route record
AAORD→GEG
American Airlines · Chicago to Spokane
- Flights
- 352
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 47%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on ORD to GEG draws a D+. Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is a little over an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 352 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on ORD to GEG runs 14 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 139 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
63.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 350 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.57%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
64.7%
Every carrier on ORD to GEG, 744 flights
These figures cover 352 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on ORD to GEG
American flew 352 of the 744 flights on ORD to GEG, about 47% of it. Its 63.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 64.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 100.0% to American at 63.7%. One 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 390 | 65.4% | 64 min | 1.79% | C |
| American Airlines (this page)thin sample | 352 | 63.7% | 78 min | 0.57% | D+ |
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am268 flights60.2%
- 11am–2pm48 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm36 flights66.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 81.2% on time, ahead of 8am–11am at 60.2%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 268 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on ORD to GEG through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025104 flights70.2%
- Oct–Dec 2025107 flights64.2%
- Jan–Mar 202651 flights36.0%
- Apr–Jun 202690 flights71.1%
Scale runs 30% to 75%. 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 63.7% on time across 352 flights.
American on ORD to GEG did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 71.1% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 36.0%, a swing of 35 points on roughly 88 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, Saturday is the strongest day at 76.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 52.9%. 24 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 9,947 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 9,947 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 31 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 9,947 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.57%, below the national 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 15.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,498 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 59.2% on time across 351 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 352 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 GEG
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 352 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 63.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 350 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to GEG, every carrier
- American on GEG to ORD, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to GEG65.4%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.