Carrier route record

OOSMF→PHX

SkyWest Airlines · Sacramento to Phoenix

Flights: 333
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 9%
Carriers: 4

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

SkyWest on SMF to PHX lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 333 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 1,076 at 87.4% on time.

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

On time

79.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 332 completed flights

Avg delay

65 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.30%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

81.5%

Every carrier on SMF to PHX, 3,668 flights

These figures cover 333 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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

SkyWest against every carrier on SMF to PHX

SkyWest flew 333 of the 3,668 flights on SMF to PHX, about 9% of it. Its 79.5% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 87.4% to Southwest at 79.0%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 87.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 79.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,147 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on SMF to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines	1,076	87.4%	103 min	0.56%	A+
Envoy Airthin sample	112	80.2%	65 min	0.89%	B+
SkyWest Airlines (this page)thin sample	333	79.5%	65 min	0.30%	B+
Southwest Airlines	2,147	79.0%	50 min	0.51%	B+

American leads Southwest by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

Departure window

When SkyWest 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 333 flights.

5am–8am7 flights—
8am–11am22 flights—
11am–2pm1 flights—
2pm–5pm234 flights78.5%
5pm–8pm66 flights77.3%
8pm–5am3 flights—

Scale runs 70% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 2pm–5pm window is the strongest at 78.5% on time. The full set of windows spans about a point.

Across the year

SkyWest on SMF to PHX through the year

Jul–Sep 202521 flights—
Oct–Dec 202571 flights71.8%
Jan–Mar 2026139 flights76.8%
Apr–Jun 2026102 flights85.3%

Scale runs 65% 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 79.5% on time across 333 flights.

SkyWest on SMF to PHX did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 85.3% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 71.8%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 111 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 88.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.2%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why SkyWest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 4,425 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
58%
Carrier
27%
National Airspace System
11%
Extreme weather
4%

58% 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 4,425 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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 4,425 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.30%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs

7.5% 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.

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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg runs 80.1% on time across 333 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 333 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 SkyWest on SMF to PHX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 333 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 79.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 332 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