Carrier route record
F9SMF→LAX
Frontier Airlines · Sacramento to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 242
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 4%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 242 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 3,558 at 89.9% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Frontier on SMF to LAX runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 48 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 236 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.48%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
85.6%
Every carrier on SMF to LAX, 5,717 flights
These figures cover 242 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Frontier against every carrier on SMF to LAX
Frontier flew 242 of the 5,717 flights on SMF to LAX, about 4% of it. Its 72.5% on time is 13 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 85.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 92.7% to Frontier at 72.5%. 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 89.9% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 77.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,660 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 55 | 92.7% | 31 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 202 | 91.6% | 72 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 3,558 | 89.9% | 87 min | 0.39% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,660 | 77.1% | 48 min | 0.30% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 242 | 72.5% | 62 min | 2.48% | 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.
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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.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am13 flights—
- 11am–2pm82 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm10 flights—
- 5pm–8pm81 flights61.2%
- 8pm–5am56 flights70.9%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.2% 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 20258 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202553 flights80.8%
- Jan–Mar 202646 flights82.2%
- Apr–Jun 202679 flights65.8%
- Jul–Sep 202656 flights67.3%
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 72.5% on time across 242 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 61 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, Thursday is the strongest day at 78.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.7%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Frontier on SMF to LAX runs when it is late
Frontier on SMF to LAX often beats the schedule: 59 of 236 completed flights, 25%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 65 late arrivals split 28 under half an hour, 16 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 21 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early59 flights25.0%
- Within 15 min112 flights47.5%
- 15–29 min late28 flights11.9%
- 30–59 min late16 flights6.8%
- 1–2 hours late14 flights5.9%
- 2+ hours late7 flights3.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 236 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 55 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 5 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 15 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at LAX.
The worst days
Worst days for Frontier on SMF to LAX
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 February 2026, 5 hours 42 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 February 2026 | 5 hours 42 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 July 2026 | 5 hours 18 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 January 2026 | 4 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 January 2026 | 4 hours 16 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 4 August 2026 | 3 hours 31 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Frontier runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 73% of the 4,050 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 73%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 11%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
73% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,050 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 73 to one. The split is drawn from 4,050 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.48% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.9% 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 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 81.0% on time across 242 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 242 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. 242 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 72.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 236 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 LAX91.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on SMF to LAX89.9%
- Southwest Airlines on SMF to LAX77.1%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.