SMF → LAX Flight Reliability

Right now

Origin · SMFNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 08:53 UTC

Sacramento airport profile →

Destination · LAXNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 08:53 UTC

Los Angeles airport profile →

Route reliability

July 2023 – July 2026

Route Reliability Score

86/ 100Strong

Better than 95% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)

Calculated from 16,602 flights. How this is calculated

On-time arrivals

86.8%

14,361 of 16,554

Cancellation rate

0.27%

45 cancelled

Median arrival delay

-9 min

Average -0.7 min

Severe delays

4.1%

60+ minutes late

Delay when late

63 min

Average, when 15+ min late

Flights analyzed

16,602

4 carriers

SMF → LAX arrives on time 86.8% of the time; the return trip, LAX → SMF, arrives on time 86.1% of the time.

SMF → LAX spends 27.1 minutes on the ground on a 373-mile trip: 16.9 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at SMF and 10.2 minutes from touchdown to gate at LAX.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026

What stands out

This route holds up about the same all year, a steadier seasonal pattern than 99% of 3,357 comparable routes.

90.2% on time in its best month (September) against 83.4% in its worst (July).

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 3,357 in the comparison.

When it goes wrong

July 2023 – July 2026

One arrival in ten is worse than

22 min late

against a median of 9 min early

Arrived an hour or more late4.1%

Typical delay when late63 min

Cancelled0.27%

Landed somewhere else0.02%

Percentiles over 16,602 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.

Will your connection be tight enough?

Layovers at LAX after arriving from SMF.

Connection buffer and chance of missing by layover length, SMF → LAX arrivals
Connection time	Chance of missing	Reads as
30 min	26%	High risk
45 min	13%	Some risk
60 min	7.6%	Some risk
90 min	4.0%	Low risk
120 min	2.4%	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 0.27% of the time and diverts 0.02% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.

Chance of missing is the share of 16,554 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 22 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 16,602 operations.

Any other layover length: connection checker.

Best time to fly

SMF → LAX flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 92.5% of the time, against 66.2% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 26.3 percentage points.

By day and hour

On-time arrival rate for each weekday and scheduled departure hour, in local time at the departure airport (SMF).

Hour of departure matters more than day of the week: hourly averages sit a typical 6.1 points from the route-wide rate, weekday averages 2.7 points.

On-time arrival rate for SMF to LAX by weekday and scheduled departure hour, local time. Each button reads out one slot.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
6 AM–7 AM
7 AM–8 AM
8 AM–9 AM
9 AM–10 AM
10 AM–11 AM
11 AM–12 PM
12 PM–1 PM
1 PM–2 PM
2 PM–3 PM
3 PM–4 PM
4 PM–5 PM
5 PM–6 PM
6 PM–7 PM
7 PM–8 PM
8 PM–9 PM

On-time rate, % · stronger color, fewer on time

72–75
76–79
80–83
84–87
88–91
92–95
96–99

Fewer than 120 flights, not scored

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · On time is arrival within 15 minutes of schedule. Cells round to whole percentages; the table shows one decimal.

No slot is named best or worst: too few reach 500 flights. Departures before 6 AM and after 9 PM (427 flights) are not drawn: no slot in those hours has enough flights to score.

View as tableHide table

On-time arrival rate (%) with flights beneath, by scheduled departure hour and weekday for SMF to LAX. A dash means fewer than 120 flights, which are not scored.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
6 AM–7 AM	93.5% on time436 flights	96.0% on time453 flights	95.4% on time453 flights	94.9% on time430 flights	92.5% on time428 flights	93.1% on time377 flights	93.6% on time390 flights
7 AM–8 AM	85.7% on time127 flights	84.6% on time123 flights	118 flights, too few to score	90.4% on time137 flights	83.7% on time135 flights	88.0% on time150 flights	88.3% on time137 flights
8 AM–9 AM	89 flights, too few to score	83 flights, too few to score	97 flights, too few to score	87 flights, too few to score	84 flights, too few to score	83 flights, too few to score	85 flights, too few to score
9 AM–10 AM	87.8% on time156 flights	94.9% on time158 flights	93.7% on time158 flights	90.7% on time151 flights	90.8% on time152 flights	68 flights, too few to score	92.7% on time123 flights
10 AM–11 AM	93.0% on time171 flights	95.3% on time151 flights	90.6% on time150 flights	91.0% on time177 flights	90.1% on time182 flights	111 flights, too few to score	90.8% on time143 flights
11 AM–12 PM	91.1% on time180 flights	90.3% on time176 flights	90.1% on time172 flights	91.4% on time175 flights	91.5% on time176 flights	90.3% on time206 flights	86.0% on time181 flights
12 PM–1 PM	114 flights, too few to score	80 flights, too few to score	75 flights, too few to score	110 flights, too few to score	118 flights, too few to score	94 flights, too few to score	117 flights, too few to score
1 PM–2 PM	81 flights, too few to score	96 flights, too few to score	101 flights, too few to score	77 flights, too few to score	86 flights, too few to score	79 flights, too few to score	119 flights, too few to score
2 PM–3 PM	82.7% on time169 flights	93.7% on time126 flights	91.2% on time125 flights	78.9% on time175 flights	82.0% on time172 flights	97 flights, too few to score	88.0% on time125 flights
3 PM–4 PM	103 flights, too few to score	97 flights, too few to score	98 flights, too few to score	107 flights, too few to score	109 flights, too few to score	79.5% on time127 flights	112 flights, too few to score
4 PM–5 PM	118 flights, too few to score	88.0% on time133 flights	86.4% on time132 flights	110 flights, too few to score	116 flights, too few to score	94 flights, too few to score	97 flights, too few to score
5 PM–6 PM	79.0% on time200 flights	82.8% on time192 flights	82.1% on time190 flights	75.9% on time213 flights	74.9% on time196 flights	86.4% on time191 flights	79.7% on time192 flights
6 PM–7 PM	76.7% on time163 flights	88.0% on time126 flights	91.7% on time134 flights	81.2% on time170 flights	81.3% on time167 flights	95 flights, too few to score	73.8% on time172 flights
7 PM–8 PM	82.8% on time134 flights	85.4% on time151 flights	86.1% on time158 flights	81.3% on time134 flights	78.7% on time127 flights	81 flights, too few to score	72.5% on time138 flights
8 PM–9 PM	78.7% on time197 flights	85.0% on time147 flights	83.0% on time153 flights	72.5% on time201 flights	74.5% on time208 flights	86 flights, too few to score	76.0% on time151 flights

By departure window

5–9 AM92.5%

9 AM–12 PM91.0%

12–3 PM87.6%

3–6 PM80.2%

6–9 PM80.3%

9 PM–5 AM66.2%

By departure hour

12 AM

3 AM

6 AM

9 AM

12 PM

3 PM

6 PM

9 PM

Why SMF → LAX runs late

July 2023 – July 2026

The airline44.5%

crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control

Late-arriving aircraft36.7%

the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late

Weather9.3%

weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically

Air traffic control9.2%

airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control

Security0.3%

screening or terminal security incidents

Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for SMF → LAX. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.

How this route holds up in bad weather

July 2023 – July 2026

Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of SMF to LAX: 1.6 times the normal rate at SMF and 1.3 times at LAX. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: SMF 1.0% against 0.6%, LAX 1.0% against 0.8%. Flights that did leave LAX in bad weather arrived on time 78.9% of the time, against 81.4% in normal hours.

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026

Departures from SMF and LAX in hours of bad weather and in normal hours
Departures from	SMF	LAX
Cancelled in bad weather	1.0%	1.0%
Cancelled in normal hours	0.6%	0.8%
Arrived on time, bad weather	83.0%	78.9%
Arrived on time, normal hours	83.2%	81.4%
Departures in bad weather	12,018	60,639

SkyWest Airlines (1.6% cancelled against 1.0% for the other carriers at SMF) cancelled more departures from SMF in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly better. One more carrier flies this route but has too few bad-weather departures from SMF to compare.

This route’s airlines in bad weather at SMF

All departures from SMF

Cancellation rates in bad weather at SMF for the airlines that fly SMF to LAX, against the other carriers at SMF in the same months
Airline	Bad-weather departures	Cancelled	Other carriers
United Airlines	942	0.6%about level	1.1%
Southwest Airlines	6,823	1.0%about level	1.2%
SkyWest Airlines	1,842	1.6%above the others	1.0%

These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from SMF and LAX, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from SMF on every route.

Weather source and limits. In full: SMF (airlines), LAX, 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.

Airlines on this route
Carrier	Flights	On time	Cancelled	Median delay	Severe
SkyWest Airlines	10,489	90.0%	0.19%	-11 min	3.7%
Southwest Airlines	5,296	80.4%	0.30%	-5 min	4.8%
Frontier Airlines	453	80.9%	1.77%	-6 min	5.8%
United Airlines	202	91.6%	0.00%	-7 min	2.5%

SkyWest Airlines flew 63.8% of the 16,440 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 1.77% of its flights here against 0.00% for United Airlines.

United Airlines arrived on time 11.2 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.

Flights on this route
Flight	Scheduled	Operations	On time
OO6265 SkyWest Airlines	6:00 AM	687	92.5%

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

Mon86.0%

Tue90.5%

Wed90.4%

Thu85.3%

Fri84.4%

Sat88.1%

Sun83.3%

Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 7.2 percentage points.

By month

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

July is historically the weakest month and September the strongest, a spread of 6.8 percentage points.

Reliability over time

July 2023 – July 2026

24

25

26

Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 85.5% against 88.6% in the 12 months before — declining by 3.1 percentage points.

Data and methodology

Calculated by FlyerIntel from 16,602 SMF → LAX 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

Analysis last recomputed September 26, 2026

SMF airport LAX airport Return direction LAX → SMF

SMF→LAX

Right now

Route reliability

What stands out

When it goes wrong

Will your connection be tight enough?

Best time to fly

By day and hour

By departure window

By departure hour

Why SMF → LAX runs late

How this route holds up in bad weather

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

This route’s airlines in bad weather at SMF

Airlines on this route

Flights on this route

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

By month

Reliability over time

Data and methodology