Route reliability record
DFW→SMF
Dallas-Fort Worth to Sacramento
- Flights
- 1,603
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,431 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route 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 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,603 DFW to SMF flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly DFW to SMF: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 74.0%, against 68.5% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 88 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,564 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.25%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
68.5% on time across 1,603 flights
These figures cover 1,603 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DFW 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,603 | 68.5% | 73 min | 2.25% | C |
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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 31 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am345 flights82.8%
- 11am–2pm365 flights76.5%
- 2pm–5pm126 flights51.6%
- 5pm–8pm288 flights65.5%
- 8pm–5am479 flights58.2%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 82.8% of the time, against 51.6% for the afternoon window. That is 31 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 479 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW 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 DFW to SMF, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 82.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 51.6%, a wide gap of 31.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am82.8%
- 11am–2pm76.5%
- 2–5pm51.6%
- 5–8pm65.5%
- 8pm–5am58.2%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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.
June is the worst month at 46.9% on time, 30 points below March, the best at 76.9%. 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 149 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 74.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 57.1%, a spread of 17 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 36,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 41%Carrier
- 5%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 36,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 35,843 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 15,000 of the 36,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.25% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
12.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,431 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.4% on time across 1,601 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,603 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SMF after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 76.9% on time and June 46.9%, a swing of 30 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,564 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to SMF questions
How often is DFW to SMF delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 31.5% of the 1,603 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is DFW to SMF compared with the rest of the country?
68.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 9 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DFW to SMF?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 82.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 51.6%, 31 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 DFW to SMF?
June is the weakest month at 46.9% on time, compared with 76.9% in March. Across the year that is 30 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 DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Sacramento International (SMF) delay statistics
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- LAX to SMF, a related route84.8%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- American Airlines on-time record68.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DFW to SMF and SMF to DFW 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.