Route reliability record

PHX→SMF

Phoenix to Sacramento

Flights: 3,673
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 647 mi
Carriers: 4

This route lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 3,673 flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,079 at 82.4% 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

80.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,653 completed flights

Avg delay

53 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.38%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

American

82.4% on time across 1,079 flights

These figures cover 3,673 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 PHX to SMF

The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.

On-time performance by carrier on PHX to SMF
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	112	85.5%	51 min	0.89%	A+
American Airlines	1,079	82.4%	64 min	0.46%	B+
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	333	80.1%	60 min	0.30%	B+
Southwest Airlines	2,149	78.9%	47 min	0.33%	B+

No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 82.4%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.

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 33 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am507 flights97.0%
8am–11am770 flights89.7%
11am–2pm539 flights84.5%
2pm–5pm739 flights77.8%
5pm–8pm486 flights68.1%
8pm–5am632 flights63.7%

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

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.7% on time, against 97.0% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 770 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 13 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.September best, June worst

June is the worst month at 71.9% on time, 13 points below September, the best at 85.2%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 355 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.3%. 9 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 54% of the 38,000 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
54%
Carrier
41%
National Airspace System
4%
Extreme weather
1%
Security
0%

54% 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 38,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 54 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 38,354 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, 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 16,000 of the 38,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.38%, 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

5.6% 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 roughly 55 minutes kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 647 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg runs 81.5% on time across 3,668 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 3,673 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. September runs 85.2% on time and June 71.9%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 3,653 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

PHX to SMF questions

How often is PHX to SMF delayed?

About 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 19.8% of the 3,673 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.

Which airline is most reliable on PHX to SMF?

American Airlines leads at 82.4% on time across 1,079 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 78.9%, a gap of 4 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 PHX to SMF?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 97.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.7%, 33 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 PHX to SMF?

June is the weakest month at 71.9% on time, compared with 85.2% in September. Across the year that is 13 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. PHX to SMF and SMF to PHX 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