Route reliability record
SMF→DFW
Sacramento to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,601
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,431 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route 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 an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,601 SMF to DFW flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly SMF to DFW: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.8% of the time and Thursday flights 88.2%, against 81.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 41 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,547 completed flights
Avg delay
100 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.37%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
81.4% on time across 1,601 flights
These figures cover 1,601 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 SMF to DFW
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,601 | 81.4% | 100 min | 2.37% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on SMF to DFW
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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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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am552 flights87.7%
- 8am–11am213 flights87.8%
- 11am–2pm311 flights78.3%
- 2pm–5pm357 flights71.5%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am168 flights80.0%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.8% of the time, against 71.5% for the afternoon window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 552 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SMF to DFW 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 SMF to DFW, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 87.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 71.5%, a wide gap of 16.3 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am87.7%
- 8–11am87.8%
- 11am–2pm78.3%
- 2–5pm71.5%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am80.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
July is the worst month at 72.8% on time, 15 points below February, the best at 87.3%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 149 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 88.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.9%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 29,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 28,660 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 13,000 of the 29,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.37% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.1% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,431 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 68.5% on time across 1,603 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,601 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 DFW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 87.3% on time and July 72.8%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,547 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SMF to DFW questions
How often is SMF to DFW delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.6% of the 1,601 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is SMF to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
81.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SMF to DFW?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 71.5%, 16 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 July delays on SMF to DFW?
July is the weakest month at 72.8% on time, compared with 87.3% in February. Across the year that is 15 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
- DFW to SMF — the return legseparate record
- Sacramento International (SMF) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- SMF to LAX, a related route85.6%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- SMF to SAN, a related route69.8%
- American Airlines on-time record81.4%
- 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. SMF to DFW and DFW to SMF 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.