Carrier route record
AASAT→ORD
American Airlines · San Antonio to Chicago
- Flights
- 550
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 28%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on SAT to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four 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 550 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on SAT to ORD runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 45 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 531 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.55%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.3%
Every carrier on SAT to ORD, 1,968 flights
These figures cover 550 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% 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 SAT to ORD
American flew 550 of the 1,968 flights on SAT to ORD, about 28% of it. Its 73.1% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 80.1% to SkyWest at 65.9%. Three 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 | 833 | 80.1% | 87 min | 1.20% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 352 | 76.6% | 67 min | 2.84% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 101 | 74.7% | 54 min | 4.95% | C− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 550 | 73.1% | 74 min | 2.55% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 132 | 65.9% | 61 min | 4.55% | C− |
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 33 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–8am246 flights84.8%
- 8am–11am4 flights—
- 11am–2pm108 flights75.2%
- 2pm–5pm57 flights66.7%
- 5pm–8pm132 flights52.3%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 52.3% on time, against 84.8% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 246 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on SAT to ORD through the year
July is the worst month at 62.7% on time, 21 points below January, the best at 83.9%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 89 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.4%. 18 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 44% of the 11,000 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% 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 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 10,526 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 84.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.55%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
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. 11.3% 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 1,041 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 68.7% on time across 548 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 550 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 SAT to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 550 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 73.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 531 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SAT to ORD, every carrier
- American on ORD to SAT, the return leg
- United Airlines on SAT to ORD80.1%
- Envoy Air on SAT to ORD76.6%
- Republic Airways on SAT to ORD74.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on SAT to ORD65.9%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- San Antonio International (SAT) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- 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.