Carrier route record
AASAT→ORD
American Airlines · San Antonio to Chicago
- Flights
- 500
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 25%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 500 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 889 at 78.9% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate American on SAT to ORD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 489 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.80%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.4%
Every carrier on SAT to ORD, 2,004 flights
These figures cover 500 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.7% 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 SAT to ORD
American flew 500 of the 2,004 flights on SAT to ORD, about 25% of it. Its 74.2% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 78.9% to SkyWest at 68.4%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 889 | 78.9% | 87 min | 1.12% | B |
| Envoy Air | 410 | 76.1% | 69 min | 3.17% | B− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 101 | 74.7% | 54 min | 4.95% | C− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 500 | 74.2% | 87 min | 1.80% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 104 | 68.4% | 52 min | 5.77% | C− |
Envoy Air cancels 3.2% 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.
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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 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am247 flights84.2%
- 8am–11am4 flights—
- 11am–2pm118 flights63.6%
- 2pm–5pm42 flights70.0%
- 5pm–8pm86 flights63.1%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.1% on time, against 84.2% 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 247 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on SAT to ORD through the year
August is the worst month at 63.3% 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. October was the busiest month here, with 81 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.9%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on SAT to ORD runs when it is late
American on SAT to ORD often beats the schedule: 192 of 489 completed flights, 39%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 126 late arrivals split 37 under half an hour, 32 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 57 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early192 flights39.3%
- Within 15 min171 flights35.0%
- 15–29 min late37 flights7.6%
- 30–59 min late32 flights6.5%
- 1–2 hours late25 flights5.1%
- 2+ hours late32 flights6.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 489 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
14 of 111 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 13% of them. In the other direction, 29 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at ORD.
The worst days
Worst days for American on SAT to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 9 August 2026, 7 hours 39 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across August, November, December and July, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 9 August 2026 | 7 hours 39 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 November 2025 | 7 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 December 2025 | 6 hours 27 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 August 2026 | 5 hours 28 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 July 2026 | 5 hours 26 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 11,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 10,997 reported delay minutes.
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one.
Cancellations sit at 1.80% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.40%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
11.7% 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.
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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 64.3% on time across 497 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 500 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. 500 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 74.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 489 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 ORD78.9%
- Envoy Air on SAT to ORD76.1%
- Republic Airways on SAT to ORD74.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on SAT to ORD68.4%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- San Antonio International (SAT) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.