Carrier route record
AASFO→MIA
American Airlines · San Francisco to Miami
- Flights
- 1,102
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 64%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on SFO to MIA lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,102 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on SFO to MIA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,090 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.91%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.4%
Every carrier on SFO to MIA, 1,725 flights
These figures cover 1,102 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on SFO to MIA
American flew 1,102 of the 1,725 flights on SFO to MIA, most of the route. Its 77.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 77.8% to United at 76.8%.
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) | 1,102 | 77.8% | 82 min | 0.91% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 623 | 76.8% | 39 min | 0.00% | B+ |
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am157 flights91.0%
- 8am–11am174 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm361 flights70.1%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am410 flights76.6%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 70.1% on time against 91.0% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 410 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on SFO to MIA through the year
October is the best month on the calendar at 86.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. June was the busiest month here, with 119 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.5%. 7 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. Carrier accounts for 53% of the 20,000 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.
- 53%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, 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 11,000 of the 20,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 19,938 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 91.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.91% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,585 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 71.2% on time across 1,102 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,102 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 SFO to MIA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 86.4% on time and May 66.0%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 1,090 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to MIA, every carrier
- American on MIA to SFO, the return leg
- United Airlines on SFO to MIA76.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.