Route reliability record
BUR→SMF
Burbank to Sacramento
- Flights
- 2,644
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 358 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns a A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 55 minutes. That rests on 2,644 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 89 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,597 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.78%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
86.5% on time across 2,644 flights
These figures cover 2,644 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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
Which airline is most reliable on BUR 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,644 | 86.5% | 55 min | 1.78% | A |
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 17 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–8am266 flights95.8%
- 8am–11am588 flights93.1%
- 11am–2pm443 flights89.9%
- 2pm–5pm552 flights78.9%
- 5pm–8pm520 flights83.3%
- 8pm–5am275 flights79.4%
Scale runs 70% 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 78.9% for the afternoon window. That is 17 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 588 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 78.0%. January is the strongest month at 94.6%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 17 points. October was the busiest month here, with 242 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 91.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 81.8%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 75% of the 19,000 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.
- 75%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%Carrier
- 5%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
75% 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 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 58 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 19,283 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 95.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.78% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.0% 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.
At 358 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 85.3% on time across 2,644 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 2,644 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 94.6% on time and October 78.0%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of October before you think about anything else. 2,597 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BUR to SMF questions
How often is BUR to SMF delayed?
About one flight in seven arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.5% of the 2,644 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is BUR to SMF compared with the rest of the country?
86.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 9 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BUR to SMF?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 78.9%, 17 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 October delays on BUR to SMF?
October is the weakest month at 78.0% on time, compared with 94.6% in January. Across the year that is 17 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 BUR — the return legseparate record
- Sacramento International (SMF) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on-time record86.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. BUR to SMF and SMF to BUR are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.