PlainFlights

SMF vs SAN - 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
SMF

Sacramento, CA

Sacramento, California

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Airport B
SAN

San Diego, CA

San Diego, California

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Key Performance Metrics

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

Metric SMF SAN
On-Time Rate (higher is better) 82.7% 80.8%
Avg Delay (lower is better) 62.4 min 64.8 min
Delay Rate (lower is better) 17.3% 19.2%
Cancellation Rate (lower is better) 0.85% 0.97%
Total Flights 592,833 973,807
Delayed Flights 102,838 186,727
Cancelled Flights 5,050 9,421
Top Delay Cause Late Aircraft Late Aircraft

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

Delay Cause Breakdown

SMF - Sacramento, CA

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

SAN - San Diego, CA

Late Aircraft 46.4%
Carrier 28.6%
NAS 20.9%
Weather 3.9%
Security 0.2%

Top Routes

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%

Top routes from SAN

Route Flights On-Time
SAN → SFO
San Francisco
34,589 77.3%
SFO → SAN
San Diego
34,477 80.3%
LAS → SAN
San Diego
33,593 72.8%
SAN → LAS
Las Vegas
33,400 77.7%
SJC → SAN
San Diego
31,755 82.2%
SAN → SJC
San Jose
31,496 82%

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.