OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

Sacramento to St. Louis

1,679 miData through May 2026Source: US DOT · BTS

Flights on SMF–STL arrive on time 82% of the time over the last 12 months.

On-time rate82%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay25 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled0.0%of scheduled flights

based on 245 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

By airline

How each carrier compares

  • Southwest Airlines
    On-time82%
    Medianon time
    p9025 min
    Cancel0.0%
    Flights245

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline45%
  • Weather0%
  • Air traffic (NAS)13%
  • Late aircraft42%
  • Security0%

Most delay minutes here are attributed to Airline.

When flights don't go

Why flights were cancelled

  • Airline56%
  • Weather44%
  • Air traffic (NAS)0%
  • Security0%

Most cancellations here are attributed to Airline. Shares are among 9 cancellations with a reported cause (BTS reports causes from June 2003).

Over time

On-time trend

By season

On-time rate by month

When to fly

Best time to fly SMF → STL

All airlines · rolling 36 months (2023-06 .. 2026-05).

Best time of day

Mornings are the most reliable time of day to fly this route — 92% on time.

  • Mornings92% on time · p90 10 min · 492 flights
  • Middays78% on time · p90 30 min · 509 flights

Best day of week

On-time rates are fairly even by day on this route — ranging from 79% to 90% on time.

  • Saturdays90% on time · p90 10 min · 147 flights · limited
  • Wednesdays88% on time · p90 20 min · 138 flights · limited
  • Sundays88% on time · p90 15 min · 160 flights · limited
  • Mondays86% on time · p90 15 min · 150 flights · limited
  • Tuesdays82% on time · p90 25 min · 140 flights · limited
  • Thursdays80% on time · p90 30 min · 148 flights · limited
  • Fridays79% on time · p90 25 min · 150 flights · limited

Keep exploring

Related pages

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.