Route profile
SMF→SLC
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Sacramento to Salt Lake City, 532 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 95% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 6,329 flights. How this is calculated
SMF → SLC arrives on time 88.9% of the time; the return trip, SLC → SMF, arrives on time 85.7% of the time, a 3.1-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
SMF → SLC spends 20.0 minutes on the ground on a 532-mile trip: 13.7 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at SMF and 6.2 minutes from touchdown to gate at SLC.
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.
92.7% on time in its best month (October) against 86.0% in its worst (January).
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
18 min late
against a median of 11 min early
Percentiles over 6,329 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at SLC after arriving from SMF.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 21% | High risk |
| 45 min | 11% | Some risk |
| 60 min | 7.2% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 4.3% | Low risk |
| 120 min | 2.6% | 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 0.46% of the time and diverts 0.13% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 6,292 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 18 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 6,329 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
SMF → SLC flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 95.3% of the time, against 79.6% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 15.7 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 95.5% on time from 1,148 flights
- 6 AM to 7 AM: too few flights to score
- 8 AM: 93.2% on time from 148 flights
- 9 AM: 92.7% on time from 692 flights
- 10 AM: 92.6% on time from 861 flights
- 11 AM: 89.3% on time from 152 flights
- 12 PM: 93.1% on time from 219 flights
- 1 PM: 86.4% on time from 1,067 flights
- 2 PM to 3 PM: too few flights to score
- 4 PM: 79.4% on time from 155 flights
- 5 PM: 84.8% on time from 1,006 flights
- 6 PM: 75.8% on time from 213 flights
- 7 PM: 82.9% on time from 390 flights
- 8 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why SMF → SLC 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 SMF → SLC. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on SMF → SLC, at 55.2%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 95.3% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 79.6%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 4,672 | 89.7% | 0.58% | -13 min | 4.4% |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,466 | 85.2% | 0.14% | -5 min | 4.7% |
Delta Air Lines flew 76.1% of the 6,138 flights listed.
Delta Air Lines arrived on time 4.5 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL1526 Delta Air Lines | 5:30 AM | 785 | 95.9% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 3.5 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 86.0%
- Feb: 88.9%
- Mar: 89.2%
- Apr: 87.8%
- May: 86.8%
- Jun: 89.9%
- Jul: 87.5%
- Aug: 87.3%
- Sep: 90.0%
- Oct: 92.7%
- Nov: 92.1%
- Dec: 88.1%
January is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 6.7 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 91.8% from 184 flights
- August 2023: 89.8% from 179 flights
- September 2023: 91.4% from 174 flights
- October 2023: 92.2% from 179 flights
- November 2023: 93.1% from 173 flights
- December 2023: 92.5% from 160 flights
- January 2024: 81.5% from 151 flights
- February 2024: 89.7% from 136 flights
- March 2024: 88.0% from 150 flights
- April 2024: 89.9% from 149 flights
- May 2024: 86.9% from 153 flights
- June 2024: 91.8% from 170 flights
- July 2024: 85.4% from 180 flights
- August 2024: 86.4% from 164 flights
- September 2024: 91.0% from 169 flights
- October 2024: 96.6% from 177 flights
- November 2024: 92.3% from 169 flights
- December 2024: 87.2% from 165 flights
- January 2025: 88.6% from 158 flights
- February 2025: 89.3% from 149 flights
- March 2025: 89.3% from 159 flights
- April 2025: 85.7% from 154 flights
- May 2025: 88.0% from 166 flights
- June 2025: 92.3% from 197 flights
- July 2025: 87.3% from 204 flights
- August 2025: 85.7% from 189 flights
- September 2025: 87.8% from 180 flights
- October 2025: 89.5% from 191 flights
- November 2025: 91.1% from 182 flights
- December 2025: 84.8% from 166 flights
- January 2026: 87.7% from 156 flights
- February 2026: 87.8% from 149 flights
- March 2026: 90.3% from 169 flights
- April 2026: 87.8% from 173 flights
- May 2026: 85.9% from 200 flights
- June 2026: 85.9% from 199 flights
- July 2026: 85.6% from 206 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 87.4% against 89.6% in the 12 months before — declining by 2.2 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 6,329 SMF → SLC 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