Route reliability record
LAS→SMF
Las Vegas to Sacramento
- Flights
- 4,005
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 397 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That rests on 4,005 LAS to SMF flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly LAS to SMF: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.3% of the time and Saturday flights 85.0%, against 77.7% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,982 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.55%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
76.8% on time across 3,460 flights
These figures cover 4,005 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 LAS 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 242 | 90.7% | 96 min | 2.48% | A |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 67 | 79.1% | 108 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 236 | 77.3% | 70 min | 1.27% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 3,460 | 76.8% | 52 min | 0.38% | B+ |
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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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am650 flights94.3%
- 8am–11am646 flights89.5%
- 11am–2pm615 flights83.9%
- 2pm–5pm677 flights69.0%
- 5pm–8pm895 flights66.4%
- 8pm–5am522 flights65.9%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.3% of the time, against 65.9% for the overnight window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 895 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAS 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 LAS to SMF, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 65.9%, a wide gap of 28.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.3%
- 8–11am89.5%
- 11am–2pm83.9%
- 2–5pm69.0%
- 5–8pm66.4%
- 8pm–5am65.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
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.
June is the worst month at 70.0% on time, 16 points below February, the best at 86.2%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 407 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 71.0%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 57% of the 49,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
57% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 49,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 30 to one. The split is drawn from 48,558 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 94.3% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.55%, below the national 1.89% 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 397 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 78.9% on time across 4,009 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 4,005 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. February runs 86.2% on time and June 70.0%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 3,982 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAS to SMF questions
How often is LAS to SMF delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.3% of the 4,005 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is LAS to SMF compared with the rest of the country?
77.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LAS to SMF?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.9%, 28 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 LAS to SMF?
June is the weakest month at 70.0% on time, compared with 86.2% in February. 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 LAS — the return legseparate record
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Sacramento International (SMF) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on LAS to SMF90.7%
- Frontier Airlines on LAS to SMF77.3%
- Southwest Airlines on LAS to SMF76.8%
- LAS to LAX, a related route77.9%
- LAX to SMF, a related route84.8%
- LAS to DEN, a related route76.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record90.7%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record79.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record77.3%
- 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. LAS to SMF and SMF to LAS 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.