Carrier route record
AASMF→ORD
American Airlines · Sacramento to Chicago
- Flights
- 337
- 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 SMF to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 337 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on SMF to ORD runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 85 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 327 completed flights
Avg delay
97 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.19%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.9%
Every carrier on SMF to ORD, 1,324 flights
These figures cover 337 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.5% 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 SMF to ORD
American flew 337 of the 1,324 flights on SMF to ORD, about 25% of it. Its 69.1% on time is 8 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 79.5% to American at 69.1%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 987 | 79.5% | 69 min | 1.01% | B |
| American Airlines (this page)thin sample | 337 | 69.1% | 97 min | 1.19% | C |
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 22 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–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm83 flights78.0%
- 2pm–5pm149 flights56.9%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am104 flights79.0%
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is the strongest at 79.0% on time. The full set of windows spans 22 points.
Across the year
American on SMF to ORD through the year
- Jul–Sep 202592 flights59.6%
- Oct–Dec 202532 flights65.6%
- Jan–Mar 202648 flights66.7%
- Apr–Jun 2026165 flights75.8%
Scale runs 50% 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 69.1% on time across 337 flights.
American on SMF to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 75.8% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 59.6%, a swing of 16 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 73.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 65.1%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 9,839 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
40% 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 9,839 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 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 9,839 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 3,743 of the 9,839 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.19% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.78%.
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. 12.5% 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 59.9% on time across 336 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 337 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 SMF to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 337 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 69.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 327 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SMF to ORD, every carrier
- American on ORD to SMF, the return leg
- United Airlines on SMF to ORD79.5%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Sacramento International (SMF) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.