Carrier route record
WNLAX→SMF
Southwest Airlines · Los Angeles to Sacramento
- Flights
- 1,650
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 29%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on LAX to SMF lands a B+, 2 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 roughly 55 minutes on average. That rests on 1,650 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest 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
79.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,644 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.24%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
84.8%
Every carrier on LAX to SMF, 5,708 flights
These figures cover 1,650 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on LAX to SMF
Southwest flew 1,650 of the 5,708 flights on LAX to SMF, about 29% of it. Its 79.0% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 84.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 89.1% to Southwest at 79.0%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 (this page) | 1,650 | 79.0% | 54 min | 0.24% | B+ |
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 Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 40 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am302 flights95.0%
- 8am–11am276 flights90.6%
- 11am–2pm298 flights84.5%
- 2pm–5pm206 flights77.2%
- 5pm–8pm290 flights69.6%
- 8pm–5am278 flights55.2%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.2% on time, against 95.0% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 302 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on LAX to SMF through the year
Delays peak in May, when the on-time rate falls to 67.9%. January is the strongest month at 89.3%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 21 points. July was the busiest month here, with 161 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.5%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on LAX to SMF runs when it is late
Southwest on LAX to SMF often beats the schedule: 418 of 1,644 completed flights, 25%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 346 late arrivals split 131 under half an hour, 118 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 97 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early418 flights25.4%
- Within 15 min880 flights53.5%
- 15–29 min late131 flights8.0%
- 30–59 min late118 flights7.2%
- 1–2 hours late69 flights4.2%
- 2+ hours late28 flights1.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,644 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 511 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 171 still arrived on time. Only 6 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on LAX to SMF
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 September 2025, 4 hours 54 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 September 2025 | 4 hours 54 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 9 March 2026 | 4 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 June 2026 | 4 hours 10 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 22 May 2026 | 4 hours 7 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 July 2026 | 3 hours 47 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 67% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 67%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 3%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 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 67 to one. The split is drawn from 18,585 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 95.0% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.24%, 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 costs
5.9% 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 roughly 55 minutes, 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 77.1% on time across 1,660 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 1,650 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 Southwest on LAX to SMF
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 89.3% on time and May 67.9%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 1,644 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to SMF, every carrier
- Southwest on SMF to LAX, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on LAX to SMF87.7%
- United Airlines on LAX to SMF83.6%
- Frontier Airlines on LAX to SMF81.0%
- Southwest 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.