Route reliability record
LAX→SMF
Los Angeles to Sacramento
- Flights
- 5,708
- Period
- September 2025 to August 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 8 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 5,708 LAX to SMF flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 3,559 at 87.7% on time.
Best time to fly LAX to SMF: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 89.0%, against 84.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 75 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,680 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.39%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
87.7% on time across 3,559 flights
These figures cover 5,708 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 LAX to SMF
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 87.7% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 79.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,650 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 55 | 89.1% | 51 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 3,559 | 87.7% | 76 min | 0.37% | A+ |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 202 | 83.6% | 42 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 242 | 81.0% | 58 min | 2.07% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,650 | 79.0% | 54 min | 0.24% | B+ |
SkyWest leads Southwest by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on LAX to SMF
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Los Angeles to Sacramento
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LAX → SMFLos Angeles to Sacramento | SkyWest Airlines | 87.4% | 87.7% | 0.37% | 8am–11am, Wed | OO 3755 09:10 |
| 2. LGB → SMFLong Beach to Sacramento | Southwest Airlines | 86.4% | 86.8% | 0.43% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. SNA → SMFSanta Ana to Sacramento | Southwest Airlines | 85.4% | 86.2% | 0.96% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. BUR → SMFBurbank to Sacramento | Southwest Airlines | 85.2% | 86.5% | 1.50% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 5. ONT → SMFOntario to Sacramento | Southwest Airlines | 84.9% | 85.1% | 0.28% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 18 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am597 flights92.2%
- 8am–11am1,278 flights90.7%
- 11am–2pm783 flights88.1%
- 2pm–5pm1,027 flights83.8%
- 5pm–8pm998 flights81.6%
- 8pm–5am1,025 flights74.5%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.2% of the time, against 74.5% for the overnight window. That is 18 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 1,278 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAX 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 LAX to SMF, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 74.5%, a wide gap of 17.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.2%
- 8–11am90.7%
- 11am–2pm88.1%
- 2–5pm83.8%
- 5–8pm81.6%
- 8pm–5am74.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 5,708 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
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. August was the busiest month here, with 537 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.7%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 56,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%Extreme weather
- 5%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 56,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 56,124 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 26,000 of the 56,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.39%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% 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 85.6% on time across 5,717 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 5,708 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: avoid the 8pm–5am departure. It runs 74.5% on time against 92.2% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 18 points is the largest single thing you control here. SkyWest Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 5,680 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to SMF questions
How often is LAX to SMF delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.2% of the 5,708 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to SMF?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 87.7% on time across 3,559 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 92.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 74.5%, 18 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.
Related
Where to go next
- SMF to LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Sacramento International (SMF) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on LAX to SMF87.7%
- United Airlines on LAX to SMF83.6%
- Frontier Airlines on LAX to SMF81.0%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to SMF79.0%
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- SAN to SMF, a related route74.5%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record89.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record87.7%
- United Airlines on-time record83.6%
- 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. 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.
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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.