PlainFlights

CLT vs SMF - Airport Comparison

Select two airports to compare on-time performance, delays, cancellations, and top routes using U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) data (2020–2025) across all 50 states. See our methodology for how metrics are computed.

Airport A
CLT

Charlotte, NC

Charlotte, North Carolina

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Airport B
SMF

Sacramento, CA

Sacramento, California

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Key Performance Metrics

BTS on-time performance data, 2020–2025 cumulative.

Metric CLT SMF
On-Time Rate (higher is better) 82.0% 82.7%
Avg Delay (lower is better) 81.1 min 62.4 min
Delay Rate (lower is better) 18.0% 17.3%
Cancellation Rate (lower is better) 1.10% 0.85%
Total Flights 2,345,248 592,833
Delayed Flights 421,203 102,838
Cancelled Flights 25,904 5,050
Top Delay Cause Late Aircraft Late Aircraft

✓ / ▲ indicates the more favorable value. Data: BTS On-Time Performance, 2020–2025.

Delay Cause Breakdown

CLT - Charlotte, NC

Late Aircraft 44.3%
Carrier 31.4%
NAS 16.4%
Weather 7.6%
Security 0.4%

SMF - Sacramento, CA

Late Aircraft 45.4%
Carrier 36.5%
NAS 15.4%
Weather 2.5%
Security 0.2%

Top Routes

Top routes from CLT

Route Flights On-Time
CLT → ATL
Atlanta
29,653 84.4%
ATL → CLT
Charlotte
29,651 84.6%
CLT → LGA
New York
28,574 77.9%
LGA → CLT
Charlotte
28,570 84%
CLT → MCO
Orlando
27,975 75.4%
MCO → CLT
Charlotte
27,972 79.5%

Top routes from SMF

Route Flights On-Time
SAN → SMF
Sacramento
30,295 81.6%
SMF → SAN
San Diego
30,193 81.7%
SMF → LAX
Los Angeles
27,971 87.8%
LAX → SMF
Sacramento
27,970 87.2%
SMF → LAS
Las Vegas
26,989 80.6%
LAS → SMF
Sacramento
26,850 78.9%

Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), On-Time Performance Data (2020–2025) Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), On-Time Performance Data (2020–2025) On-time rates exclude cancelled and diverted flights. PlainFlights is not affiliated with BTS or the DOT

Every figure on PlainFlights is rendered directly from BTS On-Time Performance data, no number is typed in by an editor. This tool queries live on-time, delay, and cancellation figures for the two selected airports from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.