Carrier route record

ASSAN→SMF

Alaska Airlines · San Diego to Sacramento

Flights: 185
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 4%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.

Alaska on SAN to SMF lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 185 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 1,185 at 79.5% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Alaska on SAN to SMF from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

77.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 180 completed flights

Avg delay

43 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.70%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

76.4%

Every carrier on SAN to SMF, 5,177 flights

These figures cover 185 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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

Alaska against every carrier on SAN to SMF

Alaska flew 185 of the 5,177 flights on SAN to SMF, about 4% of it. Its 77.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 79.5% to Southwest at 75.5%.

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 SAN to SMF
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines	1,185	79.5%	49 min	1.35%	B
Alaska Airlines (this page)thin sample	185	77.2%	43 min	2.70%	B
Southwest Airlines	3,807	75.5%	47 min	0.55%	B+

No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 79.5%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.

Departure window

When Alaska runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 185 flights.

There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Alaska's SAN to SMF record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 77.2% is the reliable figure here.

Across the year

Alaska on SAN to SMF through the year

Oct–Dec 202567 flights62.5%
Jan–Mar 202656 flights91.1%
Apr–Jun 202662 flights80.0%

Scale runs 55% to 95%. 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 77.2% on time across 185 flights.

Alaska on SAN to SMF did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 91.1% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 62.5%, a swing of 29 points on roughly 62 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.

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 1,755 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
43%
Carrier
26%
National Airspace System
23%
Extreme weather
7%

43% 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 1,755 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 1,755 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations run at 2.70%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.1% 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 last roughly 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 480 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 8pm–5am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.5% on time across 185 flights, 8 points above 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 8 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 185 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 Alaska on SAN to SMF

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 185 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 77.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 180 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures