Flight profile · American Airlines
AA970
New York (LGA) to Miami (MIA) · scheduled 8:00 AM – 11:14 AM
How AA970 performs
624 operations, November 2023 – July 2026.
AA970 arrived on time 85.7% of the time, against 74.0% for all LGA → MIA flights, so this departure is 11.7 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against American Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 10.6 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 624 operations, November 2023 – July 2026 · If AA970 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 AA970 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight runs unusually far ahead of the LGA → MIA route as a whole, better than 93% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.
85.7% on time for this specific departure, against 74.0% for every LGA → MIA 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 AA970 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA970 | 85.7% | 1.12% | -12 min | 5.4% | 624 |
| American Airlines on LGA → MIA | 75.1% | 2.78% | -8 min | 10.3% | 10,393 |
| All LGA → MIA flights | 74.0% | 2.69% | -8 min | 10.9% | 17,949 |
AA970 has cancelled 1.12% of its scheduled departures (7 of 624), against 2.69% for all LGA → MIA flights — this specific departure cancels 1.6 percentage points less often than the route as a whole. Different flight numbers on the same route can carry different aircraft, crews and schedules, so this is a fact about AA970 specifically, not about the route it flies.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · November 2023 – July 2026
Why AA970 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 AA970 on LGA → MIA. 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 AA970 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
AA970 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 10.3 hours on the ground at LGA, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, AA970 pushed back an average of 0 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 2 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into LGA just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 484 of 617 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA970 | 39% | 7% | 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 AA970’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often AA970 left 15 or more minutes late is lower than 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 LGA late, does that still matter by the time it reaches MIA?
AA970 pushes back an average of 8.6 minutes late and reaches the gate at MIA an average of 2.2 minutes late. The 6.4 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. Its 22.3 minutes on the taxiways at LGA is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at MIA, AA970 spends 11.4 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 1.7 minutes longer than a typical MIA arrival (9.8 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 MIA. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 29,099 departures from LGA scheduled in the clock hour AA970 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at MIA (340,467 flights), not just AA970’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · November 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves LGA
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. AA970 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 29,099 departures from LGA are scheduled in the 8 AM–9 AM hour over the period, against 456,467 across the whole day.
AA970 is scheduled out of LGA at 8:00 AM, in the 8 AM–9 AM bank. Departures from LGA in that hour arrive on time 87.3% of the time against 78.3% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 9.0 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from LGA 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 AA970 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DEN→ORD Denver to Chicago | March 8, 2026 – April 6, 2026 | 26 | — |
| ORD→DEN Chicago to Denver | March 8, 2026 – April 6, 2026 | 26 | — |
| DCA→CLT Washington to Charlotte | February 12, 2026 – March 7, 2026 | 24 | — |
| DFW→IND Dallas–Fort Worth to Indianapolis | January 6, 2026 – February 10, 2026 | 16 | — |
| MEM→PHX Memphis to Phoenix | January 8, 2026 – February 9, 2026 | 9 | — |
| RDU→ORD Raleigh–Durham to Chicago | December 3–17, 2025 | 13 | — |
| ORD→PHL Chicago to Philadelphia | November 20, 2025 – December 2, 2025 | 13 | — |
| RSW→DCA Fort Myers to Washington | November 2–19, 2025 | 16 | — |
| ORD→STT Chicago to Charlotte Amalie | November 8–15, 2025 | 2 | — |
| STT→ORD Charlotte Amalie to Chicago | November 8–15, 2025 | 2 | — |
| ELP→PHX El Paso to Phoenix | July 1, 2023 – November 4, 2024 | 220 | 83.5% |
| DFW→SJU Dallas–Fort Worth to San Juan | July 6, 2024 – August 5, 2024 | 31 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route AA970 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.
30 min late
against a median of 12 min early
Percentiles over 624 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA1249 | American Airlines | 91.7% | 13 min early | 724 |
| DL2347 | Delta Air Lines | 87.6% | 14 min early | 784 |
| AA970 this flight | American Airlines | 85.7% | 12 min early | 624 |
| AA605 | American Airlines | 75.0% | 8 min early | 734 |
| DL2339 | Delta Air Lines | 72.9% | 8 min early | 697 |
| AA2047 | American Airlines | 64.4% | 3 min late | 605 |
| DL2300 | Delta Air Lines | 63.5% | 1 min late | 756 |
| DL2382 | Delta Air Lines | 62.4% | 5 min early | 681 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. AA970 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 624 records of AA970 operating LGA → MIA, 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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