OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

Sacramento to Santa Barbara

310 miData through Dec 2025Source: US DOT · BTS

Flights on SMF–SBA arrive on time 81% of the time over the last 12 months.

On-time rate81%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay20 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled1.0%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-time81%
    Medianon time
    p9020 min
    Cancel1.0%
    Flights307

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline34%
  • Weather0%
  • Air traffic (NAS)15%
  • Late aircraft51%
  • Security0%

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 → SBA

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 84% to 86% on time.

  • Mornings86% on time · p90 15 min · 86 flights · limited
  • Afternoons85% on time · p90 20 min · 625 flights
  • Middays84% on time · p90 15 min · 295 flights

Best day of week

On-time rates are fairly even by day on this route — ranging from 83% to 87% on time.

  • Mondays87% on time · p90 15 min · 157 flights · limited
  • Wednesdays86% on time · p90 15 min · 153 flights · limited
  • Saturdays86% on time · p90 20 min · 126 flights · limited
  • Tuesdays86% on time · p90 15 min · 153 flights · limited
  • Thursdays83% on time · p90 25 min · 154 flights · limited
  • Sundays83% on time · p90 30 min · 157 flights · limited
  • Fridays83% on time · p90 25 min · 156 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.