Flight profile · American Airlines
AA2861
Dallas–Fort Worth (DFW) to Newark (EWR) · scheduled 2:14 PM – 7:00 PM
How AA2861 performs
625 operations, November 2023 – July 2026.
AA2861 arrived on time 54.9% of the time, against 73.0% for all DFW → EWR flights, so this departure is 18.1 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against American Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 11.3 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 625 operations, November 2023 – July 2026 · If AA2861 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 AA2861 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight runs unusually far behind the DFW → EWR route as a whole, worse than 95% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.
54.9% on time for this specific departure, against 73.0% for every DFW → EWR flight.
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 AA2861 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA2861 | 54.9% | 2.72% | 9 min | 19.0% | 625 |
| American Airlines on DFW → EWR | 66.2% | 3.05% | 0 min | 14.3% | 4,488 |
| All DFW → EWR flights | 73.0% | 2.80% | -5 min | 12.3% | 10,983 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · November 2023 – July 2026
Why AA2861 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
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 AA2861 on DFW → EWR. 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 AA2861 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying AA2861 came in 15 or more minutes late on 17% 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 DFW just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 506 of 609 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 |
|---|---|
| AA2861 | 17% |
| Network, same turn | 17% |
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 60 to 89 minutes. How often AA2861’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is about the same as 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 November 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves DFW late, does that still matter by the time it reaches EWR?
AA2861 pushes back an average of 36.1 minutes late and reaches the gate at EWR an average of 33.0 minutes late. The 3.1 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. Its 18.9 minutes on the taxiways at DFW is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at EWR, AA2861 spends 10.3 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 EWR 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 EWR. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 63,346 departures from DFW scheduled in the clock hour AA2861 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at EWR (387,854 flights), not just AA2861’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · November 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves DFW
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. AA2861 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 63,346 departures from DFW are scheduled in the 2 PM–3 PM hour over the period, against 961,718 across the whole day.
AA2861 is scheduled out of DFW at 2:14 PM, in the 2 PM–3 PM bank. Departures from DFW in that hour arrive on time 71.8% of the time against 73.1% across the airport’s whole day, so the hour AA2861 leaves in is an ordinary one for DFW and explains nothing about its record either way.
The two airport figures cover every departure from DFW 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 AA2861 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SNA→DFW Santa Ana to Dallas–Fort Worth | July 1, 2023 – April 6, 2026 | 485 | 73.0% |
| DFW→SNA Dallas–Fort Worth to Santa Ana | July 1, 2023 – April 6, 2026 | 479 | 83.3% |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route AA2861 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.
111 min late
against a median of 9 min late
AA2861 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 9 min late, but the worst tenth are 102 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 625 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1856 | United Airlines | 70.1% | 7 min early | 633 |
| AA2861 this flight | American Airlines | 54.9% | 9 min late | 625 |
| AA618 | American Airlines | 54.5% | 9 min late | 616 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. AA2861 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 625 records of AA2861 operating DFW → EWR, 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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