Carrier route record
AASFO→MIA
American Airlines · San Francisco to Miami
- Flights
- 1,137
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 65%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on SFO to MIA sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,137 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
75.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,125 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.88%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.5%
Every carrier on SFO to MIA, 1,741 flights
These figures cover 1,137 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on SFO to MIA
American flew 1,137 of the 1,741 flights on SFO to MIA, most of the route. Its 75.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 77.9% to American at 75.8%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 604 | 77.9% | 39 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,137 | 75.8% | 79 min | 0.88% | B+ |
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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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am219 flights88.5%
- 8am–11am118 flights84.5%
- 11am–2pm355 flights68.5%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am445 flights73.2%
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 68.5% on time against 88.5% 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 445 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on SFO to MIA through the year
July is the worst month at 58.9% on time, 28 points below October, the best at 86.4%. 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 124 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 72.3%, a spread of 9 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on SFO to MIA runs when it is late
American on SFO to MIA often beats the schedule: 390 of 1,125 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 272 late arrivals split 109 under half an hour, 80 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 83 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early390 flights34.7%
- Within 15 min463 flights41.2%
- 15–29 min late109 flights9.7%
- 30–59 min late80 flights7.1%
- 1–2 hours late53 flights4.7%
- 2+ hours late30 flights2.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,125 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
54 of 253 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. In the other direction, 73 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 MIA.
The worst days
Worst days for American on SFO to MIA
The latest arrival of the period was on 22 February 2026, 30 hours 7 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 22 February 2026 | 30 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 June 2026 | 21 hours 58 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 January 2026 | 19 hours 4 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 December 2025 | 11 hours 32 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 22 February 2026 | 11 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 53% of the 21,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 21,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 21,470 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 88.5% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.88%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, 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 69.2% on time across 1,137 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 1,137 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 July 58.9%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,125 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 MIA77.9%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- 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.