Carrier performance at one airport
WN→SMF
Southwest Airlines at Sacramento International
- Departures
- 32,072
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #7 of 8
Southwest Airlines at Sacramento lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 32,072 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 3,437 at 91.2% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Southwest Airlines runs 2 points behind the 82.2% weighted average across all carriers at SMF. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
80.2%
31,861 completed departures
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
0.45%
At SMF, this carrier only
Rank here
#7
Of 8 carriers clearing the floor at SMF
These figures cover 32,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.
Against the competition
Every carrier at SMF, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 91.2% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 77.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 588 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 3,437 | 91.2% | 83 min | 0.93% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 4,363 | 86.4% | 65 min | 0.69% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 9,236 | 83.7% | 68 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,378 | 82.7% | 48 min | 0.84% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 3,571 | 82.6% | 95 min | 1.74% | B |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 553 | 82.4% | 71 min | 1.08% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 32,072 | 80.2% | 49 min | 0.45% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 588 | 77.2% | 69 min | 1.53% | B |
The spread between Delta and Frontier is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Route by route
Where Southwest Airlines flies from SMF
Southwest Airlines operates 25 routes out of SMF with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SMF to SAN · San Diego | 3,810 | 70.9% | 48 min | 0.55% | C+ |
| SMF to LAS · Las Vegas | 3,432 | 78.7% | 54 min | 0.35% | B+ |
| SMF to BUR · Burbank | 2,644 | 85.3% | 53 min | 1.82% | A |
| SMF to SNA · Santa Ana | 2,304 | 84.2% | 43 min | 0.48% | B+ |
| SMF to PHX · Phoenix | 2,147 | 79.0% | 50 min | 0.51% | B+ |
| SMF to ONT · Ontario | 2,111 | 84.7% | 52 min | 0.24% | B+ |
| SMF to LGB · Long Beach | 1,893 | 85.6% | 49 min | 0.26% | A+ |
| SMF to DEN · Denver | 1,864 | 76.8% | 49 min | 0.32% | B+ |
| SMF to LAX · Los Angeles | 1,616 | 77.3% | 48 min | 0.19% | B+ |
| SMF to PDX · Portland | 1,205 | 79.2% | 50 min | 0.08% | B+ |
| SMF to SEA · Seattle | 1,155 | 77.4% | 43 min | 0.17% | B+ |
| SMF to BOI · Boise | 855 | 80.1% | 47 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| SMF to MDW · Chicago | 672 | 85.5% | 35 min | 0.30% | A+ |
| SMF to DAL · Dallas | 661 | 74.5% | 47 min | 0.61% | C+ |
| SMF to GEG · Spokane | 633 | 77.1% | 50 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| SMF to SLC · Salt Lake City | 576 | 81.6% | 60 min | 0.17% | B+ |
| SMF to PSP · Palm Springs | 513 | 86.5% | 57 min | 0.19% | A+ |
| SMF to AUS · Austin | 416 | 78.6% | 43 min | 0.24% | B+ |
| SMF to SBA · Santa Barbara | 366 | 88.6% | 49 min | 1.09% | A |
| SMF to EUG · Eugene | 365 | 82.4% | 51 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| SMF to HNL · Honolulu | 365 | 86.6% | 45 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SMF to KOA · Kailua-Kona | 365 | 87.9% | 57 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SMF to BWI · Baltimorethin sample | 364 | 83.3% | 39 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| SMF to HOU · Houstonthin sample | 364 | 74.7% | 35 min | 0.55% | C+ |
| SMF to BNA · Nashvillethin sample | 346 | 89.5% | 41 min | 0.29% | A+ |
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 23 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am6,008 flights93.3%
- 8am–11am6,451 flights89.4%
- 11am–2pm5,536 flights78.1%
- 2pm–5pm5,140 flights70.6%
- 5pm–8pm4,753 flights69.9%
- 8pm–5am4,184 flights73.8%
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 93.3% of the time, against 69.9% for the evening window. That is 23 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 6,451 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
June is the worst month at 74.0% on time, 11 points below January, the best at 85.1%. 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 2,998 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
56% 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 305,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 56 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 305,223 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.45%, 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.
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
32,072 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
Put together: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 69.9% on time against 93.3% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 23 points is the largest single thing you control here. Delta Air Lines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 31,861 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Southwest Airlines at SMF
How often is Southwest Airlines at SMF delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.8% of the 32,072 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Southwest Airlines at SMF?
Delta Air Lines leads at 91.2% on time across 3,437 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 77.2%, a gap of 14 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on Southwest Airlines at SMF?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.9%, 23 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are June delays on Southwest Airlines at SMF?
June is the weakest month at 74.0% on time, compared with 85.1% in January. Across the year that is 11 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Sacramento International (SMF) all carriers
- SMF to SAN route record70.9%
- SMF to LAS route record78.7%
- SMF to BUR route record85.3%
- SMF to SNA route record84.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.