Route reliability record

LAX→SMF

Los Angeles to Sacramento

Flights: 5,634
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 373 mi
Carriers: 5

This route earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 5,634 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 3,517 at 87.8% on time.

Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 70 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

84.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,605 completed flights

Avg delay

63 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.41%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

SkyWest

87.8% on time across 3,517 flights

These figures cover 5,634 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 LAX to SMF

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 87.8% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 79.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,614 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on LAX to SMF
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines	3,517	87.8%	74 min	0.43%	A+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	204	83.5%	56 min	1.96%	B
United Airlinesthin sample	201	83.5%	42 min	0.00%	B+
Southwest Airlines	1,614	79.0%	53 min	0.19%	B+
Delta Air Linesthin sample	98	67.0%	66 min	1.02%	C

SkyWest leads Southwest by 9 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 19 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am544 flights92.4%
8am–11am1,319 flights90.7%
11am–2pm774 flights87.1%
2pm–5pm985 flights84.2%
5pm–8pm949 flights82.9%
8pm–5am1,063 flights73.0%

Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.4% of the time, against 73.0% for the overnight window. That is 19 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 1,319 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 5,634 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, March worst

September is the best month on the calendar at 90.2% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 525 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 80.4%. 8 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. Carrier accounts for 45% of the 55,000 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.

Carrier
45%
Late-arriving aircraft
39%
Extreme weather
10%
National Airspace System
5%
Security
0%

39% 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 55,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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 54,781 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, 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 25,000 of the 55,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.41%, 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

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.8% 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 373 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 86.0% on time across 5,637 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 5,634 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: avoid the 8pm–5am departure. It runs 73.0% on time against 92.4% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 19 points is the largest single thing you control here. SkyWest Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 5,605 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

LAX to SMF questions

How often is LAX to SMF delayed?

Roughly one flight in six arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.4% of the 5,634 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on LAX to SMF?

SkyWest Airlines leads at 87.8% on time across 3,517 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 79.0%, a gap of 9 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 LAX to SMF?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 73.0%, 19 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 March delays on LAX to SMF?

March is the weakest month at 80.5% on time, compared with 90.2% in September. Across the year that is 10 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. LAX to SMF and SMF to LAX 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