Flight profile · American Airlines
AA2897
Miami (MIA) to Washington (DCA) · scheduled 8:30 PM – 11:09 PM
How AA2897 performs
606 operations, November 2023 – July 2026.
AA2897 arrived on time 70.8% of the time, against 74.5% for all MIA → DCA flights, so this departure is 3.7 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against American Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 3.0 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 606 operations, November 2023 – July 2026 · If AA2897 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where AA2897 is right now
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA2897 | 70.8% | 2.48% | 0 min | 9.5% | 606 |
| American Airlines on MIA → DCA | 73.8% | 2.10% | -5 min | 9.2% | 10,822 |
| All MIA → DCA flights | 74.5% | 1.97% | -5 min | 9.0% | 11,974 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · November 2023 – July 2026
Why AA2897 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
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for AA2897 on MIA → DCA. 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 AA2897 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
AA2897 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 10.4 hours on the ground at MIA, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
The aircraft flying AA2897 came in 15 or more minutes late on 21% 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 MIA just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 374 of 593 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 |
|---|---|
| AA2897 | 21% |
| Network, same turn | 29% |
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 AA2897’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 November 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves MIA late, does that still matter by the time it reaches DCA?
AA2897 pushes back an average of 17.5 minutes late and reaches the gate at DCA an average of 11.9 minutes late. The 5.6 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 25.2 minutes on the taxiways at MIA, 1.3 minutes longer than a typical MIA departure in the same hour.
On arrival at DCA, AA2897 spends 5.7 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 2.0 minutes shorter than a typical DCA arrival (7.6 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 DCA. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 20,262 departures from MIA scheduled in the clock hour AA2897 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at DCA (435,126 flights), not just AA2897’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · November 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves MIA
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. AA2897 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 20,262 departures from MIA are scheduled in the 8 PM–9 PM hour over the period, against 340,469 across the whole day.
AA2897 is scheduled out of MIA at 8:30 PM, in the 8 PM–9 PM bank. Departures from MIA in that hour arrive on time 64.9% of the time against 73.2% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 8.3 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from MIA 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 AA2897 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CLT→TUL Charlotte to Tulsa | May 23, 2026 – June 27, 2026 | 6 | — |
| TUL→CLT Tulsa to Charlotte | May 23, 2026 – June 27, 2026 | 6 | — |
| STL→DFW St. Louis to Dallas–Fort Worth | July 1, 2023 – April 6, 2026 | 451 | 78.7% |
| DFW→STL Dallas–Fort Worth to St. Louis | July 1, 2023 – April 6, 2026 | 433 | 80.6% |
| LGA→FLL New York to Fort Lauderdale | January 6, 2026 – February 11, 2026 | 37 | — |
| FLL→LGA Fort Lauderdale to New York | January 6, 2026 – February 11, 2026 | 32 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route AA2897 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.
57 min late
against a median of 0 min early
Percentiles over 606 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA2897 this flight | American Airlines | 70.8% | 0 min early | 606 |
| AA2648 | American Airlines | 59.3% | 6 min late | 989 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. AA2897 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 606 records of AA2897 operating MIA → DCA, 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