Carrier route record
OOSMF→SFO
SkyWest Airlines · Sacramento to San Francisco
- Flights
- 1,245
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 92%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on SMF to SFO draws a D. Roughly one flight in two arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is a little over an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 1,245 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so SkyWest on SMF to SFO runs 18 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 180 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
59.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,222 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.85%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
62.2%
Every carrier on SMF to SFO, 1,360 flights
These figures cover 1,245 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
SkyWest against every carrier on SMF to SFO
SkyWest flew 1,245 of the 1,360 flights on SMF to SFO, most of the route. Its 59.3% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 62.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 93.0% to SkyWest at 59.3%. One 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 115 | 93.0% | 65 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 1,245 | 59.3% | 72 min | 1.85% | D |
Flight by flight
SkyWest flight numbers on SMF to SFO
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Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 61 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am274 flights88.6%
- 8am–11am117 flights40.0%
- 11am–2pm250 flights60.3%
- 2pm–5pm260 flights58.1%
- 5pm–8pm96 flights27.7%
- 8pm–5am248 flights47.5%
Scale runs 20% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 27.7% on time, against 88.6% for the 5am–8am 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 274 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on SMF to SFO through the year
June is the worst month at 31.7% on time, 46 points below March, the best at 78.1%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 145 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 72.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 51.1%, a spread of 21 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on SMF to SFO runs when it is late
The 497 late arrivals split 166 under half an hour, 180 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 151 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early259 flights21.2%
- Within 15 min466 flights38.1%
- 15–29 min late166 flights13.6%
- 30–59 min late180 flights14.7%
- 1–2 hours late92 flights7.5%
- 2+ hours late59 flights4.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,222 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 393 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 36 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 140 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 SFO.
The worst days
Worst days for SkyWest on SMF to SFO
The latest arrival of the period was on 23 February 2026, 17 hours 53 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across February, August, July and December, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 23 February 2026 | 17 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 August 2026 | 15 hours 40 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 August 2026 | 15 hours 33 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 July 2026 | 15 hours 24 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 14 December 2025 | 15 hours 13 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 44% of the 36,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%National Airspace System
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
44% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 16,000 minutes out of 36,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 35,578 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
12.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 86 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.0% on time across 1,243 flights, 18 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 18 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,245 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 SkyWest on SMF to SFO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 78.1% on time and June 31.7%, a swing of 46 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,222 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SMF to SFO, every carrier
- SkyWest on SFO to SMF, the return leg
- United Airlines on SMF to SFO93.0%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Sacramento International (SMF) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.