Carrier route record

WNSMF→PHX

Southwest Airlines · Sacramento to Phoenix

Flights: 2,147
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 59%
Carriers: 4

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

Southwest on SMF to PHX lands a B+, about a point 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 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,147 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest 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

79.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,132 completed flights

Avg delay

50 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.51%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

81.5%

Every carrier on SMF to PHX, 3,668 flights

These figures cover 2,147 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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

Southwest against every carrier on SMF to PHX

Southwest flew 2,147 of the 3,668 flights on SMF to PHX, most of the route. Its 79.0% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 87.4% to Southwest at 79.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

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 Airlinesthin sample	333	79.5%	65 min	0.30%	B+
Southwest Airlines (this page)	2,147	79.0%	50 min	0.51%	B+

Departure window

When Southwest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am504 flights94.0%
8am–11am358 flights90.8%
11am–2pm273 flights78.1%
2pm–5pm424 flights63.9%
5pm–8pm380 flights69.5%
8pm–5am208 flights71.5%

Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.0% of the time, against 63.9% for the afternoon window. That is 30 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 504 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on SMF to PHX through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.January best, June worst

June is the worst month at 70.3% on time, 19 points below January, the best at 89.5%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 207 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 73.6%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 59% of the 23,000 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
59%
Carrier
29%
National Airspace System
12%
Security
1%
Extreme weather
0%

59% 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 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 59 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 22,560 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 94.0% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.51%, 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

5.4% 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 50 minutes, 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 78.9% on time across 2,149 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.

The sample behind these figures is 2,147 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.

What to do with this

Booking Southwest on SMF to PHX

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 89.5% on time and June 70.3%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,132 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