OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

Sacramento to Houston

1,624 miData through Dec 2025Source: US DOT · BTS

Flights on SMF–HOU arrive on time 75% of the time over the last 12 months.

On-time rate75%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay25 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled0.3%of scheduled flights

based on 307 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

By airline

How each carrier compares

  • Southwest Airlines
    On-time75%
    Medianon time
    p9025 min
    Cancel0.3%
    Flights307

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline38%
  • Weather0%
  • Air traffic (NAS)21%
  • Late aircraft39%
  • Security1%

Most delay minutes here are attributed to Late aircraft.

Over time

On-time trend

By season

On-time rate by month

When to fly

Best time to fly SMF → HOU

All airlines · rolling 36 months (2023-01 .. 2025-12).

Best time of day

On-time rates are fairly even by time of day on this route — ranging from 78% to 89% on time.

  • Mornings89% on time · p90 10 min · 394 flights
  • Afternoons83% on time · p90 30 min · 115 flights · limited
  • Middays78% on time · p90 25 min · 399 flights

Best day of week

On-time rates are fairly even by day on this route — ranging from 78% to 89% on time.

  • Saturdays89% on time · p90 15 min · 131 flights · limited
  • Tuesdays85% on time · p90 15 min · 131 flights · limited
  • Sundays85% on time · p90 20 min · 130 flights · limited
  • Wednesdays83% on time · p90 15 min · 131 flights · limited
  • Fridays81% on time · p90 30 min · 129 flights · limited
  • Thursdays81% on time · p90 25 min · 126 flights · limited
  • Mondays78% on time · p90 25 min · 130 flights · limited
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Methodology

A flight is on time when it arrives within 15 minutes of schedule — the US DOT / BTS standard. Median and p90(the “1-in-10 bad day”) are read from the full arrival-delay distribution, never averaged across periods.

Figures cover a carrier’s own BTS-coded flights. Cells below ~200 flights are flagged as limited data. All numbers are pre-computed from public BTS On-Time Performance data.