Route reliability record
ATL→SMF
Atlanta to Sacramento
- Flights
- 1,007
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,092 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,007 ATL to SMF flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to SMF: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.3%, against 82.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 50 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 994 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.19%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
82.3% on time across 1,007 flights
These figures cover 1,007 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to SMF
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,007 | 82.3% | 55 min | 1.19% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to SMF
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 14 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am365 flights89.6%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm16 flights—
- 5pm–8pm288 flights75.9%
- 8pm–5am338 flights81.5%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.6% of the time, against 75.9% for the evening window. That is 14 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 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to SMF by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ATL to SMF, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 89.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 75.9%, a wide gap of 13.7 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am89.6%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm75.9%
- 8pm–5am81.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
July is the worst month at 75.3% on time, 16 points below September, the best at 90.8%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 89 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.0%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 53% of the 9,688 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,157 of the 9,688 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,688 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.19% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.10%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% 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.
At 2,092 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 92.9% on time across 1,007 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,007 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SMF after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,007 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 82.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 994 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to SMF questions
How often is ATL to SMF delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.7% of the 1,007 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to SMF compared with the rest of the country?
82.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ATL to SMF?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 89.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 75.9%, 14 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 July delays on ATL to SMF?
July is the weakest month at 75.3% on time, compared with 90.8% in September. Across the year that is 16 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
- SMF to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Sacramento International (SMF) delay statistics
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- LAX to SMF, a related route84.8%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.3%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. ATL to SMF and SMF to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.