Carrier route record
AAORD→JAC
American Airlines · Chicago to Jackson
- Flights
- 397
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 49%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on ORD to JAC sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 397 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on ORD to JAC runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 85 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 392 completed flights
Avg delay
103 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.50%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
68.7%
Every carrier on ORD to JAC, 817 flights
These figures cover 397 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.5% 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 JAC
American flew 397 of the 817 flights on ORD to JAC, about 49% of it. Its 69.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 68.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 69.1% to United at 68.3%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 397 | 69.1% | 103 min | 0.50% | C+ |
| United Airlines | 420 | 68.3% | 58 min | 0.95% | C+ |
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 397 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am262 flights67.4%
- 11am–2pm133 flights72.0%
- 2pm–5pm2 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 11am–2pm window is the strongest at 72.0% on time. The full set of windows spans 5 points.
Across the year
American on ORD to JAC through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025180 flights70.0%
- Oct–Dec 202551 flights72.0%
- Jan–Mar 202678 flights55.3%
- Apr–Jun 202688 flights77.9%
Scale runs 45% to 85%. 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 69.1% on time across 397 flights.
American on ORD to JAC did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 77.9% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 55.3%, a swing of 23 points on roughly 99 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, Thursday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.0%. 19 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 13,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Carrier
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
39% 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 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 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 12,511 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 5,220 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.50%, 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. 13.5% 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 1,162 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 63.1% on time across 397 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 397 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 JAC
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 397 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 69.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 392 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.