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Airline · AA · 2020–2025 BTS data

American Airlines

According to PlainFlights' airline traffic ranking (BTS On-Time Performance total flights), American Airlines ranks #3 of 18 tracked US carriers by total flights (most flights = #1).

Data updated 2026-06-13

78.6%
On-time
-0.4 pts
vs US avg
85 min
Delay when late
2.35%
Cancelled
#3 of 18
Corpus placement

According to PlainFlights' airline traffic ranking (BTS On-Time Performance total flights), American Airlines ranks #3 of 18 tracked US carriers by total flights (most flights = #1). How we place airlines.

BTS on-time dispatch plate

Carrier AA · American Airlines

ONTIME-SOFT · PHOTO-FINISH · BOOK-MEGA · LATE-AC · CX-HOT · SPREAD-WIDE

  • ONTIME-SOFT 78.6% on-time
  • PHOTO-FINISH -0.4 pts vs US
  • BOOK-MEGA 5.1M flights
  • LATE-AC Late aircraft lead
  • CX-HOT 2.35% cancel
  • SPREAD-WIDE 21-pt season gap

Nearest on-time peer: Spirit Airlines ( -1.0 pts)

Instrument codes from this carrier’s BTS on-time band, national gap, flight-book size, leading delay cause, cancel posture, and seasonal spread, not a booking recommendation.

On-time neighbourhood

Poles + nearest peers, not a full 18-carrier reprint

Value

What this shows How AA sits among BTS on-time poles and nearest peers.

Source BTS On-Time Performance As of 2020–2025

American Airlines - monthly on-time rate

Last 24 months reported; ranged 63%–84%

60%65%70%75%80%85%90% Jan '24Apr '24Jul '24Oct '24Jan '25Apr '25Jul '25Oct '25Dec '25 73.8%

American Airlines - BTS Delay Tier Breakdown

How American Airlines flights distribute across federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics arrival-delay tiers. The on-time band uses the BTS 15-minute threshold; longer-delay tiers reflect arrival-time bins reported in the underlying database.

American Airlines (AA) - flight delay tier distribution Stacked horizontal bar showing what percent of American Airlines (AA) flights fell into each Bureau of Transportation Statistics delay tier: on-time (under 15 minutes late), delayed (15-60 minutes), heavily delayed (60-120 minutes), severe (120+ minutes), and cancelled. American Airlines (AA) Flight delay tiers · BTS On-Time Performance methodology 78.6% 19.1% 0% 100% On time <15m · 78.6% Delayed 15–60m · 19.1% Cancelled cnx · 2.4%
Tiers follow Bureau of Transportation Statistics On-Time Performance definitions, a flight is on-time if it arrives less than 15 minutes after schedule.

Delay Cause Breakdown

Top delay cause: Late Aircraft. Total delay minutes: 87,874,824.

Late Aircraft 44.5% (39,135,869 min)
Carrier 35.6% (31,248,783 min)
NAS (National Aviation System) 14.5% (12,725,963 min)
Weather 5.2% (4,587,094 min)
Security 0.2% (177,115 min)

Seasonal on-time calendar

Multi-year average by calendar month for AA (BTS 2020–2025), not a single recent year.

  • Best month

    November

    82.7% on-time · ~69,547 flights/mo

  • Mid pack

    April

    80.3% on-time · ~67,060 flights/mo

  • Worst month

    July

    71.0% on-time · ~75,816 flights/mo

Spread 11.7 pts between November and July. The monthly chart above shows the recent path; this desk ranks the long-run calendar.

AA delay-share reading

Across 5,078,840 BTS-reported flights (2020–2025), American Airlines posts 78.6% on-time, 0.4 points below the 79% national flight-weighted average, with 1,086,532 delayed arrivals and 119,543 cancellations (2.35% of the book). When a flight runs late, the average delay is 85.4 minutes.

Delay minutes concentrate in Late Aircraft (44.5% late-aircraft, 35.6% carrier, 14.5% NAS, 5.2% weather, 0.2% security across 87,874,824 total delay minutes). That mix is this carrier’s fingerprint, not a fleet-wide template sentence.

On the multi-year calendar, AA is strongest in November (82.7% on-time on about 69,547 flights per month) and weakest in July (71.0%). The 11.7-point seasonal swing is why the dispatch plate stamps a season code for this airline alone.

Nearest on-time peer

Closest BTS on-time neighbour for AA, not a universal board reprint.

Spirit Airlines

-1.0 pts on-time vs AA

Spirit Airlines on-time profile

Field definitions: on-time performance explained.

Data Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), On-Time Performance Data (2020–2025). Statistics reflect cumulative performance across all available reporting periods. On-time rates exclude cancelled and diverted flights.
Data sourced from U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) On-Time Performance data. See our methodology for details. Retrieved and formatted by PlainFlights

Disclaimer: This information is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Data is sourced from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). Consult a qualified professional before making decisions based on this data.

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

Every figure on PlainFlights is rendered directly from BTS On-Time Performance data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page aggregates this airline's on-time performance and delay-cause breakdown, live from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.