Flight profile · American Airlines
AA2842
Chicago (ORD) to Charlotte (CLT) · scheduled 5:00 AM – 8:16 AM
How AA2842 performs
623 operations, November 2023 – July 2026.
AA2842 arrived on time 90.7% of the time, against 75.9% for all ORD → CLT flights, so this departure is 14.8 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against American Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 14.3 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 623 operations, November 2023 – July 2026 · If AA2842 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
What stands out
How AA2842 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight runs unusually far ahead of the carrier's own average on this route, better than 98% of 11,589 comparable flight numbers.
90.7% on time for this specific departure, against 76.4% for the same carrier's other flights on this route.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · November 2023 – July 2026 · The one thing about this specific departure that ranks most extreme against every other published flight number, out of everything FlyerIntel checks — shown only when something clears a real statistical bar, not for every flight.
Where AA2842 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA2842 | 90.7% | 1.44% | -9 min | 2.8% | 623 |
| American Airlines on ORD → CLT | 76.4% | 1.48% | -6 min | 9.4% | 9,564 |
| All ORD → CLT flights | 75.9% | 1.42% | -5 min | 9.2% | 13,780 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · November 2023 – July 2026
Why AA2842 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for AA2842 on ORD → CLT. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering November 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies AA2842 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
AA2842 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 6.8 hours on the ground at ORD, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, AA2842 pushed back an average of 2 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 1 minute late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into ORD just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 512 of 614 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 | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA2842 | 32% | 10% | 7% |
| Network, same turn | 29% | 12% | 9% |
A night on the ground absorbs most of a late arrival, so a late inbound matters far less on a turn this long than on a same-day one.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 6 hours or more, usually overnight. How often AA2842’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often AA2842 left 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s.
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 November 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves ORD late, does that still matter by the time it reaches CLT?
AA2842 pushes back an average of 6.2 minutes late and reaches the gate at CLT an average of 0.2 minutes late. The 6.0 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 15.5 minutes on the taxiways at ORD, 1.2 minutes shorter than a typical ORD departure in the same hour.
On arrival at CLT, AA2842 spends 12.6 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 about what any arrival at CLT spends on the ground before reaching the gate.
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 CLT. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 9,462 departures from ORD scheduled in the clock hour AA2842 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at CLT (618,237 flights), not just AA2842’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · November 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves ORD
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. AA2842 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 9,462 departures from ORD are scheduled in the 5 AM–6 AM hour over the period, against 952,802 across the whole day.
AA2842 is scheduled out of ORD at 5:00 AM, in the 5 AM–6 AM bank. Departures from ORD in that hour arrive on time 88.7% of the time against 74.5% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 14.2 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from ORD 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 · November 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes AA2842 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| MIA→TPA Miami to Tampa | July 1, 2023 – April 6, 2026 | 354 | 63.0% |
| OKC→PHX Oklahoma City to Phoenix | February 12, 2026 – March 6, 2026 | 14 | — |
| PHX→OKC Phoenix to Oklahoma City | February 12, 2026 – March 6, 2026 | 14 | — |
| TPA→MIA Tampa to Miami | October 7, 2024 – January 5, 2026 | 44 | — |
| MSY→CLT New Orleans to Charlotte | December 3–17, 2025 | 15 | — |
| CLT→MSY Charlotte to New Orleans | December 4–15, 2025 | 10 | — |
| DFW→LBB Dallas–Fort Worth to Lubbock | May 6, 2024 – June 4, 2024 | 30 | — |
| LBB→DFW Lubbock to Dallas–Fort Worth | May 6, 2024 – June 4, 2024 | 30 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route AA2842 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.
13 min late
against a median of 9 min early
Percentiles over 623 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering November 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA2842 this flight | American Airlines | 90.7% | 9 min early | 623 |
| AA1784 | American Airlines | 85.1% | 7 min early | 861 |
| UA2635 | United Airlines | 75.6% | 2 min early | 719 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. AA2842 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 623 records of AA2842 operating ORD → CLT, 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
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