Route reliability record
SMF→PHX
Sacramento to Phoenix
- Flights
- 3,615
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 647 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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 about an hour on average. That rests on 3,615 SMF to PHX flights, of which American Airlines flew 981 at 86.8% on time.
Best time to fly SMF to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.8% of the time and Saturday flights 84.9%, against 80.8% 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
80.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,588 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.53%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
86.8% on time across 981 flights
These figures cover 3,615 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 PHX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 86.8% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 78.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,129 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 981 | 86.8% | 100 min | 0.61% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 147 | 83.6% | 63 min | 0.68% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,129 | 78.3% | 49 min | 0.47% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 358 | 77.5% | 67 min | 0.56% | B+ |
American leads Southwest by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on SMF to PHX
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Sacramento to Phoenix
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SMF → PHXSacramento to Phoenix | American Airlines | 86.3% | 86.8% | 0.61% | 8am–11am, Thu | AA 1867 06:00 |
| 2. SMF → PHXSacramento to Phoenix | Southwest Airlines | 77.9% | 78.3% | 0.47% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 27 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am897 flights92.8%
- 8am–11am602 flights90.7%
- 11am–2pm599 flights80.8%
- 2pm–5pm773 flights69.5%
- 5pm–8pm533 flights71.5%
- 8pm–5am211 flights65.6%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.8% of the time, against 65.6% for the overnight window. That is 27 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 897 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SMF to PHX 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 PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 65.6%, a wide gap of 27.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.8%
- 8–11am90.7%
- 11am–2pm80.8%
- 2–5pm69.5%
- 5–8pm71.5%
- 8pm–5am65.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 86.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 354 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.4%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 60% of the 42,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
60% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 42,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 60 to one. The split is drawn from 41,829 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 92.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.53%, 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
5.9% 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.
The 647 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 runs 80.0% on time across 3,606 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 3,615 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 PHX 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. September runs 86.8% on time and October 74.2%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of October before you think about anything else. 3,588 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SMF to PHX questions
How often is SMF to PHX 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 19.2% of the 3,615 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SMF to PHX?
American Airlines leads at 86.8% on time across 981 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 78.3%, a gap of 9 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SMF to PHX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.6%, 27 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 October delays on SMF to PHX?
October is the weakest month at 74.2% on time, compared with 86.8% in September. Across the year that is 13 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
- PHX to SMF — the return legseparate record
- Sacramento International (SMF) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- American Airlines on SMF to PHX86.8%
- Envoy Air on SMF to PHX83.6%
- Southwest Airlines on SMF to PHX78.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on SMF to PHX77.5%
- SMF to LAX, a related route85.6%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- SMF to SAN, a related route69.8%
- American Airlines on-time record86.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record83.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.3%
- 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 PHX and PHX 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.