Carrier route record
AAORD→SJU
American Airlines · Chicago to San Juan
- Flights
- 429
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 31%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on ORD to SJU sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 429 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on ORD to SJU runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 61 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 420 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.63%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
73.2%
Every carrier on ORD to SJU, 1,390 flights
These figures cover 429 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.6% 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 ORD to SJU
American flew 429 of the 1,390 flights on ORD to SJU, about 31% of it. Its 71.2% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 73.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 79.2% to Spirit at 60.8%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 657 | 79.2% | 52 min | 0.30% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 429 | 71.2% | 64 min | 1.63% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 72 | 66.7% | 189 min | 4.17% | C− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 232 | 60.8% | 76 min | 8.19% | 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–11am225 flights75.1%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm37 flights71.4%
- 5pm–8pm103 flights57.8%
- 8pm–5am64 flights79.0%
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.8% on time, against 79.0% for the 8pm–5am 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 225 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on ORD to SJU through the year
June is the worst month at 36.7% on time, 47 points below April, the best at 83.3%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 76.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 67.7%, a spread of 9 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on ORD to SJU runs when it is late
American on ORD to SJU often beats the schedule: 134 of 420 completed flights, 32%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 121 late arrivals split 32 under half an hour, 36 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 53 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early134 flights31.9%
- Within 15 min165 flights39.3%
- 15–29 min late32 flights7.6%
- 30–59 min late36 flights8.6%
- 1–2 hours late42 flights10.0%
- 2+ hours late11 flights2.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 420 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
35 of 138 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 25% of them. 18 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on ORD to SJU
The latest arrival of the period was on 24 June 2026, 5 hours 53 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. The five worst days are spread across June, January, February and March, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 24 June 2026 | 5 hours 53 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 16 January 2026 | 4 hours 25 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 June 2026 | 4 hours 3 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 21 February 2026 | 3 hours 19 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 20 March 2026 | 3 hours 15 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 7,773 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 11% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 7,773 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,784 of the 7,773 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.63% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.47%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
12.6% 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 2,072 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 77.3% on time across 426 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 429 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 SJU
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 429 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 71.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 420 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to SJU, every carrier
- American on SJU to ORD, the return leg
- United Airlines on ORD to SJU79.2%
- Spirit Airlines on ORD to SJU60.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Luis Munoz Marin International (SJU) delay statistics
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.