Route profile
IAD→SMF
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Washington to Sacramento, 2,358 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 38% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 1,030 flights. How this is calculated · What counts as on time
IAD → SMF arrives on time 77.7% of the time; the return trip, SMF → IAD, arrives on time 90.2% of the time, a 12.5-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
IAD → SMF spends 30.0 minutes on the ground on a 2,358-mile trip: 24.5 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at IAD and 5.5 minutes from touchdown to gate at SMF.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What sets this route apart
Where IAD to SMF differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
IAD to SMF is at its best against routes of similar length for flights scheduled at 7 PM: 87.0% arrive on time, 18.7 points ahead of the 68.3% those routes manage at that hour. Against all other routes the gap is 19.2 points.
United Airlines’ flights on IAD to SMF arrive on time 77.7% of the time, 3.6 points below the 81.3% it manages on its routes of similar length.
IAD to SMF against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 7 PM departures | 87.0% | routes of similar length | 68.3% | +18.7 pts | 123 here, 43,776 there |
| Airline: United Airlines | 77.7% | routes of similar length | 81.3% | −3.6 pts | 1,014 here, 244,263 there |
Each comparison pools the flights of other routes, with this route’s own left out. Similar length means within 15% of this route’s 2,358 miles, with at least 5 such routes. A bucket is set against the most comparable group that has enough flights: similar length, then the same origin (at least 3 routes), then all other routes. Hours, weekdays and months appear only where both sides have 120 completed flights, and airlines where both have 600. The gap must be at least 2 points and 2 standard errors, and only the largest gap each way is kept per measure. These are differences in the flights counted, not causes.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
50 min late
against a median of 6 min early
Percentiles over 1,030 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at SMF after arriving from IAD.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 36% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 22% | High risk |
| 60 min | 15% | High risk |
| 90 min | 8.6% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 5.7% | Some risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 1.26% of the time and diverts 0.29% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 1,014 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 50 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 1,030 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Why IAD → SMF runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for IAD → SMF. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on IAD → SMF, at 36.7%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,030 | 77.7% | 1.26% | -6 min | 8.7% |
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA2435 United Airlines | 5:55 PM | 713 | 78.9% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Monday is historically the most reliable day and Saturday the least, a gap of 8.6 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 81.3% against 74.6% in the 12 months before — improving by 6.7 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,030 IAD → SMF flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed