Carrier route record

AAORD→SMF

American Airlines · Chicago to Sacramento

Flights: 336
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 25%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on ORD to SMF draws a D. Roughly one flight in two arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 336 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on ORD to SMF runs 18 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 177 extra late arrivals.

On time

59.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 329 completed flights

Avg delay

60 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.49%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

66.2%

Every carrier on ORD to SMF, 1,324 flights

These figures cover 336 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on ORD to SMF

American flew 336 of the 1,324 flights on ORD to SMF, about 25% of it. Its 59.9% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 66.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 68.3% to American at 59.9%.

Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.

On-time performance by carrier on ORD to SMF
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	988	68.3%	67 min	1.01%	C
American Airlines (this page)thin sample	336	59.9%	60 min	1.49%	D

Departure window

When American runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 50 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am—
8am–11am51 flights88.2%
11am–2pm180 flights64.6%
2pm–5pm1 flights—
5pm–8pm22 flights—
8pm–5am82 flights38.5%

Scale runs 30% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 38.5% on time, against 88.2% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 180 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on ORD to SMF through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights65.2%
Oct–Dec 202531 flights73.3%
Jan–Mar 202648 flights45.7%
Apr–Jun 2026165 flights58.4%

Scale runs 35% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 59.9% on time across 336 flights.

American on ORD to SMF did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 73.3% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 45.7%, a swing of 28 points on roughly 84 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 71.7% on time and Thursday the weakest at 49.0%. 23 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 7,953 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Late-arriving aircraft
51%
Carrier
32%
National Airspace System
13%
Extreme weather
3%

51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 7,953 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 7,953 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 88.2% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.49% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.60%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 16.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

At 1,781 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.1% on time across 337 flights, 9 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 9 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 336 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking American on ORD to SMF

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 336 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 59.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 329 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures