Carrier route record
F9SMF→LAX
Frontier Airlines · Sacramento to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 204
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 4%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on SMF to LAX sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 204 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 3,517 at 90.1% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on SMF to LAX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 199 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.45%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
86.0%
Every carrier on SMF to LAX, 5,637 flights
These figures cover 204 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Frontier against every carrier on SMF to LAX
Frontier flew 204 of the 5,637 flights on SMF to LAX, about 4% of it. Its 73.9% on time is 12 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 86.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 95.9% to Frontier at 73.9%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 90.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 77.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,616 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 99 | 95.9% | 24 min | 1.01% | A |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 201 | 91.5% | 72 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 3,517 | 90.1% | 86 min | 0.45% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,616 | 77.3% | 48 min | 0.19% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 204 | 73.9% | 60 min | 2.45% | C |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Departure window
When Frontier runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 20 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am13 flights—
- 11am–2pm82 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm10 flights—
- 5pm–8pm57 flights61.4%
- 8pm–5am42 flights70.7%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.4% on time, against 81.2% for the 11am–2pm 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 82 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on SMF to LAX through the year
- Jul–Sep 202526 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202553 flights80.8%
- Jan–Mar 202646 flights82.2%
- Apr–Jun 202679 flights65.8%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. 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 73.9% on time across 204 flights.
Frontier on SMF to LAX did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 82.2% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 65.8%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 68 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.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 80.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.7%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Frontier runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 68% of the 3,136 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.
- 68%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
68% 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 3,136 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 55 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 3,136 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.45% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.0% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 373 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.5% on time across 204 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 204 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 Frontier on SMF to LAX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 204 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 73.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 199 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SMF to LAX, every carrier
- Frontier on LAX to SMF, the return leg
- United Airlines on SMF to LAX91.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on SMF to LAX90.1%
- Southwest Airlines on SMF to LAX77.3%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Sacramento International (SMF) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.