Route profile
PHX→SMF
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Phoenix to Sacramento, 647 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 84% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 11,259 flights. How this is calculated
PHX → SMF arrives on time 81.0% of the time; the return trip, SMF → PHX, arrives on time 84.3% of the time, a 3.3-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
PHX → SMF spends 18.8 minutes on the ground on a 647-mile trip: 14.1 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at PHX and 4.7 minutes from touchdown to gate at SMF.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
33 min late
against a median of 5 min early
Percentiles over 11,259 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at SMF after arriving from PHX.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 37% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 18% | High risk |
| 60 min | 11% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 5.1% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 2.8% | Low 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 0.21% of the time and diverts 0.10% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 11,224 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 33 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 11,259 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
PHX → SMF flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 94.3% of the time, against 65.2% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 29.1 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 98.0% on time from 359 flights
- 6 AM: 98.1% on time from 427 flights
- 7 AM: 93.7% on time from 983 flights
- 8 AM: 91.5% on time from 846 flights
- 9 AM: 91.3% on time from 412 flights
- 10 AM: 84.2% on time from 871 flights
- 11 AM: 84.2% on time from 684 flights
- 12 PM: 81.5% on time from 259 flights
- 1 PM: 84.0% on time from 892 flights
- 2 PM: 79.7% on time from 772 flights
- 3 PM: 76.1% on time from 396 flights
- 4 PM: 75.3% on time from 858 flights
- 5 PM: 77.0% on time from 693 flights
- 6 PM: 70.4% on time from 402 flights
- 7 PM: 64.9% on time from 357 flights
- 8 PM: 71.1% on time from 1,058 flights
- 9 PM: 66.6% on time from 563 flights
- 10 PM: 64.1% on time from 416 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why PHX → 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
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for PHX → SMF. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on PHX → SMF, at 51.6%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 94.3% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 65.2%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
The harder-hit end is the one the flight leaves from, where a cancellation keeps it from departing at all. Bad weather cancels 3.9 times the normal rate at PHX against 1.6 times at SMF. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: PHX 2.5% against 0.6%, SMF 1.0% against 0.6%. Flights that did leave PHX in bad weather arrived on time 53.7% of the time, against 80.6% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | PHX | SMF |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 2.5% | 1.0% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 0.6% | 0.6% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 53.7% | 83.0% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 80.6% | 83.2% |
| Departures in bad weather | 6,215 | 12,018 |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from PHX and SMF, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad.
Weather source and limits. In full: PHX, SMF, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 6,435 | 79.7% | 0.22% | -4 min | 4.6% |
| American Airlines | 3,182 | 80.8% | 0.19% | -6 min | 6.9% |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,134 | 84.9% | 0.18% | -7 min | 4.8% |
| Envoy Air | 508 | 89.3% | 0.39% | -8 min | 3.0% |
Southwest Airlines flew 57.2% of the 11,259 flights listed.
Envoy Air arrived on time 9.6 percentage points more often than Southwest Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA2048 American Airlines | 8:20 PM | 747 | 76.1% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 7.8 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 83.3%
- Feb: 85.4%
- Mar: 83.6%
- Apr: 81.5%
- May: 76.6%
- Jun: 72.8%
- Jul: 74.7%
- Aug: 81.3%
- Sep: 86.3%
- Oct: 80.1%
- Nov: 83.2%
- Dec: 85.2%
June is historically the weakest month and September the strongest, a spread of 13.5 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 74.2% from 283 flights
- August 2023: 80.5% from 293 flights
- September 2023: 86.9% from 237 flights
- October 2023: 79.9% from 295 flights
- November 2023: 86.6% from 307 flights
- December 2023: 88.5% from 304 flights
- January 2024: 78.0% from 295 flights
- February 2024: 86.7% from 265 flights
- March 2024: 86.0% from 316 flights
- April 2024: 81.0% from 327 flights
- May 2024: 70.3% from 330 flights
- June 2024: 70.1% from 281 flights
- July 2024: 73.0% from 285 flights
- August 2024: 81.4% from 307 flights
- September 2024: 86.8% from 295 flights
- October 2024: 83.3% from 324 flights
- November 2024: 83.8% from 308 flights
- December 2024: 83.1% from 320 flights
- January 2025: 89.2% from 287 flights
- February 2025: 86.4% from 279 flights
- March 2025: 85.2% from 366 flights
- April 2025: 82.8% from 350 flights
- May 2025: 79.3% from 352 flights
- June 2025: 76.1% from 315 flights
- July 2025: 76.2% from 316 flights
- August 2025: 82.2% from 264 flights
- September 2025: 85.2% from 241 flights
- October 2025: 76.4% from 280 flights
- November 2025: 79.5% from 327 flights
- December 2025: 84.2% from 349 flights
- January 2026: 83.0% from 299 flights
- February 2026: 83.2% from 291 flights
- March 2026: 79.9% from 355 flights
- April 2026: 80.7% from 339 flights
- May 2026: 80.1% from 341 flights
- June 2026: 71.9% from 271 flights
- July 2026: 75.3% from 265 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 80.2% against 82.7% in the 12 months before — declining by 2.5 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 11,259 PHX → 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