SMF to HOU flight delays
Sacramento, CA (SMF) Houston, TX (HOU) · 1,624 miles
30 flights · March 2025 – August 2026 · US Bureau of Transportation Statistics
This route flew fewer than 50 times in the period, which is too few for an on-time rate to mean anything. The figures below are shown as recorded, but the route is not graded.
65.52%
Arrived on time
Within 15 minutes of schedule
0%
Cancelled
Share of scheduled flights
23 min
When late, late by
Average across delayed arrivals
10 min
Delay per flight
Averaged over every flight flown
What the record says about this route
Lateness here is frequent but mild: flights slip past the fifteen-minute line often, yet the average delay is only about 23 minutes. That is an annoyance rather than a broken plan, and it is a very different route from one with the same on-time rate and hour-long delays.
This is a late route. Flights from Sacramento to Houston miss their scheduled arrival often enough that a tight connection at the far end is a connection at risk.
The two directions do not behave alike. HOU to SMF arrives on time 7.8 points more often than the outbound. Delay accumulates through the flying day, so whichever direction is scheduled later tends to carry the worse record — which is an argument for booking the morning departure if the choice exists.
This route does worse than its own airport. SMF as a whole runs 8.8 points more punctual than these flights, which points at something specific to the route — the time of day it is scheduled, or the aircraft that feed it — rather than the airport.
Every airline on SMF to HOU
Ranked by how many flights each one operated. A carrier with fewer than 100 flights in the period is listed but not graded.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Avg delay | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 30 | 65.52% | 0% | 23 min | — |
The return leg
HOU to SMF Houston back to Sacramento 73.33% on time —Other routes from Sacramento
Common questions
Are flights from Sacramento to Houston usually delayed?
65.52% of flights on the SMF to HOU route arrived within 15 minutes of schedule, so roughly 3 in every ten arrived late. That is worse than the average route in this record.
How often are SMF to HOU flights cancelled?
0% of scheduled flights did not operate — about 1 in every thousand. That is in the normal range.
When SMF to HOU flights are late, how late are they?
About 23 minutes on average across the flights that arrived more than 15 minutes behind schedule.
What these figures do and do not tell you
Everything on this page is counted from the flights that actually operated on SMF to HOU during March 2025 – August 2026, as reported by the airlines to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics. "On time" is the federal definition: arriving at the gate within 15 minutes of the scheduled time.
A route's record is a description of the past, not a forecast. Weather, air traffic control and the aircraft's earlier flights that day drive most delays, and none of them are predictable from a historical rate. What the record does tell you is whether this route runs late more often than others, and which carrier on it has the better history — which is the part you can actually act on when you book.
Cancellations are counted separately from delays because they are a different problem for a traveller: a late flight still gets you there. How the grade is calculated →