Route reliability record
SMF→LAS
Sacramento to Las Vegas
- Flights
- 4,009
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 397 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route 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 about an hour on average. That rests on 4,009 SMF to LAS flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly SMF to LAS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.7%, against 78.9% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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.
Key figures
On time
78.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,980 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
77.9% on time across 3,464 flights
These figures cover 4,009 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 LAS
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 241 | 92.8% | 83 min | 2.49% | A |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 68 | 91.2% | 27 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 3,464 | 77.9% | 54 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 236 | 76.0% | 72 min | 1.27% | 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
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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am709 flights94.4%
- 8am–11am769 flights91.6%
- 11am–2pm586 flights74.0%
- 2pm–5pm833 flights72.6%
- 5pm–8pm675 flights66.6%
- 8pm–5am437 flights68.6%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.4% of the time, against 66.6% for the evening window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 833 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SMF to LAS 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 LAS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 66.6%, a wide gap of 27.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.4%
- 8–11am91.6%
- 11am–2pm74.0%
- 2–5pm72.6%
- 5–8pm66.6%
- 8pm–5am68.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
August is the worst month at 70.5% on time, 16 points below February, the best at 86.3%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 407 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 71.7%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 46,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 46,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 23 to one. The split is drawn from 46,336 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 94.4% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.65%, 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 actually costs
6.4% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 397 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 77.7% on time across 4,005 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 4,009 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 LAS 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 86.3% on time and August 70.5%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 3,980 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SMF to LAS questions
How often is SMF to LAS 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 21.1% of the 4,009 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is SMF to LAS compared with the rest of the country?
78.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 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 LAS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.6%, 28 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 August delays on SMF to LAS?
August is the weakest month at 70.5% on time, compared with 86.3% in February. Across the year that is 16 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
- LAS to SMF — the return legseparate record
- Sacramento International (SMF) delay statistics
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on SMF to LAS92.8%
- Southwest Airlines on SMF to LAS77.9%
- Frontier Airlines on SMF to LAS76.0%
- SMF to LAX, a related route85.6%
- LAX to LAS, a related route75.8%
- SMF to SAN, a related route69.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record92.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record91.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.9%
- 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 LAS and LAS 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.