Flight profile · American Airlines
AA16
San Francisco (SFO) to New York (JFK) · scheduled 10:40 AM – 9:59 PM
How AA16 performs
1,044 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
AA16 arrived on time 77.4% of the time, against 80.4% for all SFO → JFK flights, so this departure is 3.0 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against American Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 5.6 points worse.
AA16’s scheduled departure has moved during the period FlyerIntel has on file: it typically left around 10:45 AM earlier on, and around 10:15 AM more recently — a 30-minute shift, not the few minutes of day-to-day rounding every published schedule carries. Confirm the current departure time before booking around an older listing.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 1,044 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If AA16 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where AA16 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA16 | 77.4% | 1.05% | -9 min | 9.0% | 1,044 |
| American Airlines on SFO → JFK | 83.0% | 1.59% | -14 min | 7.2% | 4,398 |
| All SFO → JFK flights | 80.4% | 1.40% | -10 min | 7.5% | 20,820 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why AA16 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for AA16 on SFO → JFK. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies AA16 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying AA16 came in 15 or more minutes late on 10% of the departures where its previous flight is known. There are not enough departures in both groups to say how the flight left after a late one and after an on-time one.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into SFO just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 1,025 of 1,033 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late |
|---|---|
| AA16 | 10% |
| Network, same turn | 18% |
The schedule leaves a normal turn: enough time to clean and board if the aircraft is on time, little to spare if it is not.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 45 to 59 minutes. How often AA16’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s. There are not enough departures in both groups to compare how it left.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves SFO late, does that still matter by the time it reaches JFK?
AA16 pushes back an average of 17.4 minutes late and reaches the gate at JFK an average of 9.0 minutes late. The 8.4 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. It spends 19.5 minutes on the taxiways at SFO, 2.4 minutes shorter than a typical SFO departure in the same hour.
On arrival at JFK, AA16 spends 13.6 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is 2.2 minutes longer than a typical JFK arrival (11.5 min).
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached JFK. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 35,609 departures from SFO scheduled in the clock hour AA16 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at JFK (351,546 flights), not just AA16’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves SFO
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. AA16 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 35,609 departures from SFO are scheduled in the 10 AM–11 AM hour over the period, against 435,779 across the whole day.
AA16 is scheduled out of SFO at 10:40 AM, in the 10 AM–11 AM bank. Departures from SFO in that hour arrive on time 74.6% of the time against 78.7% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 4.1 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from SFO to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
By day of week
Does AA16 run worse on particular days?
Friday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 14.0 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Days with fewer than 120 operations are not scored.
Other routes AA16 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| LAS→JFK Las Vegas to New York | February 8–12, 2024 | 3 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route AA16 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
45 min late
against a median of 9 min early
Percentiles over 1,044 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA234 | American Airlines | 90.7% | 16 min early | 1,096 |
| AA276 | American Airlines | 89.1% | 20 min early | 1,098 |
| DL405 | Delta Air Lines | 89.0% | 16 min early | 785 |
| DL383 | Delta Air Lines | 85.8% | 14 min early | 785 |
| B62116 | JetBlue | 85.1% | 12 min early | 685 |
| B6816 | JetBlue | 83.8% | 11 min early | 836 |
| B61216 | JetBlue | 77.6% | 9 min early | 742 |
| AA16 this flight | American Airlines | 77.4% | 9 min early | 1,044 |
| B6616 | JetBlue | 77.1% | 6 min early | 800 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. AA16 is placed in the same ordering rather than left out of it; the rows around it are the most punctual departures on the route, not all of them, so this is a comparison and not a rank. Schedules change; confirm the departure still operates before booking around this.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,044 records of AA16 operating SFO → JFK, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
Analysis last recomputed