Carrier route record

AAPHX→SMF

American Airlines · Phoenix to Sacramento

Flights: 1,079
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 29%
Carriers: 4

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

American on PHX to SMF lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,079 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, American's PHX to SMF record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 48 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,072 completed flights

Avg delay

64 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.46%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

80.2%

Every carrier on PHX to SMF, 3,673 flights

These figures cover 1,079 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on PHX to SMF

American flew 1,079 of the 3,673 flights on PHX to SMF, about 29% of it. Its 82.4% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 80.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 85.5% to Southwest at 78.9%. Two 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.

On-time performance by carrier on PHX to SMF
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	112	85.5%	51 min	0.89%	A+
American Airlines (this page)	1,079	82.4%	64 min	0.46%	B+
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	333	80.1%	60 min	0.30%	B+
Southwest Airlines	2,149	78.9%	47 min	0.33%	B+

Flight by flight

American flight numbers on PHX to SMF

AA 167711:0487.3% · 268 flights

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–8am71 flights95.8%
8am–11am347 flights87.0%
11am–2pm206 flights89.3%
2pm–5pm135 flights75.9%
5pm–8pm93 flights68.1%
8pm–5am227 flights74.3%

Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.8% of the time, against 68.1% for the evening window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 347 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on PHX to SMF through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, June worst

June is the worst month at 66.1% on time, 29 points below February, the best at 95.1%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 122 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.0%. 7 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 57% of the 12,000 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
57%
Carrier
38%
National Airspace System
4%
Extreme weather
1%
Security
0%

57% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 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 12,145 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 4,558 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.46%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 647 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 87.4% on time across 1,076 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,079 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 PHX to SMF

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,079 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 82.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,072 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