Carrier route record
F9LAX→SMF
Frontier Airlines · Los Angeles to Sacramento
- Flights
- 242
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 4%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on LAX to SMF lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 242 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 3,559 at 87.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Frontier on LAX to SMF from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 237 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.07%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
84.8%
Every carrier on LAX to SMF, 5,708 flights
These figures cover 242 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 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
Frontier against every carrier on LAX to SMF
Frontier flew 242 of the 5,708 flights on LAX to SMF, about 4% of it. Its 81.0% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 84.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 89.1% to Southwest at 79.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 Airlines (this page)thin 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When Frontier runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 20 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am13 flights—
- 8am–11am68 flights90.9%
- 11am–2pm27 flights—
- 2pm–5pm78 flights77.9%
- 5pm–8pm56 flights70.9%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.9% of the time, against 70.9% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 78 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on LAX to SMF through the year
- Jul–Sep 20258 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202553 flights84.6%
- Jan–Mar 202646 flights80.0%
- Apr–Jun 202679 flights83.1%
- Jul–Sep 202656 flights74.5%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 81.0% on time across 242 flights.
Frontier on LAX to SMF did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 84.6% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 74.5%, a swing of 10 points on roughly 61 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 92.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.6%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Frontier on LAX to SMF runs when it is late
Frontier on LAX to SMF often beats the schedule: 99 of 237 completed flights, 42%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 45 late arrivals split 18 under half an hour, 15 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 12 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early99 flights41.8%
- Within 15 min93 flights39.2%
- 15–29 min late18 flights7.6%
- 30–59 min late15 flights6.3%
- 1–2 hours late7 flights3.0%
- 2+ hours late5 flights2.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 237 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
12 of 55 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 22% of them. Only 2 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Frontier on LAX to SMF
The latest arrival of the period was on 19 January 2026, 5 hours behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 19 January 2026 | 5 hours | Extreme weather |
| 19 January 2026 | 4 hours 30 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 4 August 2026 | 3 hours 12 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 August 2026 | 2 hours 56 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 May 2026 | 2 hours 7 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Frontier runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 67% of the 2,624 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 67%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%Carrier
- 8%Extreme weather
- 6%National Airspace System
67% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 2,624 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 2,624 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.07% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.1% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.5% on time across 242 flights, 9 points below 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 242 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Frontier on LAX to SMF
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 242 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 81.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 237 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to SMF, every carrier
- Frontier on SMF to LAX, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on LAX to SMF87.7%
- United Airlines on LAX to SMF83.6%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to SMF79.0%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Sacramento International (SMF) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.