Carrier route record

ASSMF→HNL

Alaska Airlines · Sacramento to Honolulu

Flights: 181
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 25%
Carriers: 3

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

Alaska on SMF to HNL lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 40 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 181 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.

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

On time

76.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 181 completed flights

Avg delay

41 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.00%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

80.8%

Every carrier on SMF to HNL, 730 flights

These figures cover 181 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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 SMF to HNL

Alaska flew 181 of the 730 flights on SMF to HNL, about 25% of it. Its 76.8% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 86.6% to Hawaiian at 73.2%. One 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.

On-time performance by carrier on SMF to HNL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Southwest Airlines	365	86.6%	45 min	0.00%	A+
Alaska Airlines (this page)thin sample	181	76.8%	41 min	0.00%	B+
Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample	184	73.2%	71 min	0.54%	C+

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 181 flights.

5am–8am67 flights80.6%
8am–11am114 flights74.6%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 80.6% on time for the 5am–8am window against 74.6% for 8am–11am. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 114 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Alaska on SMF to HNL through the year

Jan–Mar 202690 flights72.2%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights81.3%

Scale runs 65% to 85%. 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 76.8% on time across 181 flights.

Split by quarter, Alaska on SMF to HNL logged 90 flights in Jan–Mar 2026 and 91 flights in Apr–Jun 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 76.8% annual figure is the one to use.

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 89% of the 1,722 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.

Carrier
89%
National Airspace System
6%
Late-arriving aircraft
3%
Extreme weather
1%

The largest share of delay minutes, 89%, 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 1,534 of the 1,722 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,722 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

At 2,462 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.4% on time across 181 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 181 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 SMF to HNL

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 181 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 76.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 181 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