Route reliability record

LAS→SMF

Las Vegas to Sacramento

Flights: 4,239
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 397 mi
Carriers: 4

This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 4,239 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 406 at 88.2% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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.

On time

78.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,212 completed flights

Avg delay

58 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.57%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

SkyWest

88.2% on time across 406 flights

These figures cover 4,239 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

Which airline is most reliable on LAS to SMF

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 88.2% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 77.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 3,432 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on LAS to SMF
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines	406	88.2%	96 min	1.48%	A
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	190	81.6%	94 min	2.11%	B
Southwest Airlines	3,432	77.0%	53 min	0.32%	B+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	211	76.4%	68 min	1.42%	B

SkyWest leads Southwest by 11 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

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 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am665 flights93.8%
8am–11am702 flights87.9%
11am–2pm675 flights83.6%
2pm–5pm737 flights70.4%
5pm–8pm969 flights69.1%
8pm–5am491 flights65.4%

Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.8% of the time, against 65.4% 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 969 flights scheduled in it.

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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, June worst

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. July was the busiest month here, with 452 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 71.8%. 15 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 52% of the 53,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
52%
Carrier
36%
National Airspace System
9%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
0%

52% 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 53,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 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 52,877 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 19,000 of the 53,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.57%, 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.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

6.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the about an hour kind, 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 80.1% on time across 4,238 flights, within 2 points 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 4,239 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. 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. 4,212 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 five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.8% of the 4,239 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on LAS to SMF?

SkyWest Airlines leads at 88.2% on time across 406 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 77.0%, a gap of 11 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 LAS to SMF?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.4%, 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.

Where to go next

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.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures