Carrier route record
AAORD→SRQ
American Airlines · Chicago to Sarasota
- Flights
- 216
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 22%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on ORD to SRQ sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 216 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on ORD to SRQ runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 69 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 208 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.70%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.4%
Every carrier on ORD to SRQ, 998 flights
These figures cover 216 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.9% 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 SRQ
American flew 216 of the 998 flights on ORD to SRQ, about 22% of it. Its 70.7% on time is 7 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 83.5% to SkyWest at 50.0%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 121 | 83.5% | 61 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 617 | 79.4% | 70 min | 0.65% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page)thin sample | 216 | 70.7% | 75 min | 3.70% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 42 | 66.7% | 91 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 50.0% | 198 min | 0.00% | F+ |
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 28 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–11am113 flights80.2%
- 11am–2pm59 flights52.7%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am44 flights69.0%
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 52.7% on time against 80.2% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 113 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on ORD to SRQ through the year
- Oct–Dec 202531 flights66.7%
- Jan–Mar 202686 flights68.3%
- Apr–Jun 202699 flights74.0%
Scale runs 60% 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 70.7% on time across 216 flights.
Quarter by quarter American on ORD to SRQ held fairly steady: 66.7% in Oct–Dec 2025, 68.3% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 74.0% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 7 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 54.8%. 33 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 55% of the 4,544 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
55% 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 4,544 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 55 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 4,544 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 80.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.70%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 25 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
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. 13.9% 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.
The 1,050 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 63.1% on time across 217 flights, 8 points below 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 216 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 SRQ
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.70% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 208 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to SRQ, every carrier
- American on SRQ to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to SRQ83.5%
- United Airlines on ORD to SRQ79.4%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.