OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

Charlotte to Sacramento

2,244 miData through May 2026Source: US DOT · BTS

Flights on CLT–SMF arrive on time 72% of the time over the last 12 months.

On-time rate72%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay65 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled1.9%of scheduled flights

based on 421 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

By airline

How each carrier compares

  • American Airlines
    On-time72%
    Medianon time
    p9065 min
    Cancel1.9%
    Flights421

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline29%
  • Weather14%
  • Air traffic (NAS)8%
  • Late aircraft48%
  • Security0%

Most delay minutes here are attributed to Late aircraft.

When flights don't go

Why flights were cancelled

  • Airline0%
  • Weather100%
  • Air traffic (NAS)0%
  • Security0%

Most cancellations here are attributed to Weather. Shares are among 8 cancellations with a reported cause (BTS reports causes from June 2003).

Over time

On-time trend

By season

On-time rate by month

When to fly

Best time to fly CLT → SMF

All airlines · rolling 36 months (2023-06 .. 2026-05).

Best time of day

Evenings are the most reliable time of day to fly this route — 67% on time.

  • Evenings67% on time · p90 75 min · 958 flights
  • Afternoons57% on time · p90 90 min · 107 flights · limited

Best day of week

On-time rates are fairly even by day on this route — ranging from 63% to 73% on time.

  • Wednesdays73% on time · p90 65 min · 169 flights · limited
  • Saturdays73% on time · p90 70 min · 171 flights · limited
  • Mondays69% on time · p90 85 min · 173 flights · limited
  • Tuesdays67% on time · p90 85 min · 168 flights · limited
  • Thursdays66% on time · p90 55 min · 177 flights · limited
  • Fridays64% on time · p90 65 min · 180 flights · limited
  • Sundays63% on time · p90 80 min · 180 flights · limited

Keep exploring

Related pages

Methodology

A flight is on time when it arrives within 15 minutes of schedule — the US DOT / BTS standard. Median and p90(the “1-in-10 bad day”) are read from the full arrival-delay distribution, never averaged across periods.

Figures cover a carrier’s own BTS-coded flights. Cells below ~200 flights are flagged as limited data. All numbers are pre-computed from public BTS On-Time Performance data.