Carrier route record
AAORD→RSW
American Airlines · Chicago to Fort Myers
- Flights
- 1,116
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 34%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on ORD to RSW sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,116 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,612 at 81.8% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on ORD to RSW runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 52 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,088 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.88%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.1%
Every carrier on ORD to RSW, 3,239 flights
These figures cover 1,116 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.3% 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 RSW
American flew 1,116 of the 3,239 flights on ORD to RSW, about 34% of it. Its 72.4% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 81.8% to Spirit at 60.8%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 81.8% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 60.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 372 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,612 | 81.8% | 67 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 103 | 78.0% | 50 min | 2.91% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 36 | 77.1% | 75 min | 2.78% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,116 | 72.4% | 70 min | 1.88% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 372 | 60.8% | 79 min | 5.38% | D− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 5.4% 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.
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 34 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am276 flights89.3%
- 8am–11am175 flights75.0%
- 11am–2pm358 flights68.1%
- 2pm–5pm48 flights82.6%
- 5pm–8pm180 flights54.9%
- 8pm–5am79 flights60.8%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.9% on time, against 89.3% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 358 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on ORD to RSW through the year
December is the weak month at 62.6% on time, against 89.3% in September. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 157 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.5%. 17 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 21,000 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
- 25%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%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 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 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 21,096 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 89.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.88% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.63%.
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. 12.3% 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 1,120 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 runs 74.3% on time across 1,116 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,116 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 ORD to RSW
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 89.3% on time and December 62.6%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,088 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to RSW, every carrier
- American on RSW to ORD, the return leg
- United Airlines on ORD to RSW81.8%
- Southwest Airlines on ORD to RSW78.0%
- Spirit Airlines on ORD to RSW60.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.