PlainFlights

SMF vs SBA - 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
SBA

Santa Barbara, CA

Santa Barbara, California

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Key Performance Metrics

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

Metric SMF SBA
On-Time Rate (higher is better) 82.7% 83.3%
Avg Delay (lower is better) 62.4 min 78.6 min
Delay Rate (lower is better) 17.3% 16.7%
Cancellation Rate (lower is better) 0.85% 1.01%
Total Flights 592,833 83,263
Delayed Flights 102,838 13,934
Cancelled Flights 5,050 843
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%

SBA - Santa Barbara, CA

Late Aircraft 41.2%
Carrier 32.9%
NAS 20.1%
Weather 5.6%
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 SBA

Route Flights On-Time
SFO → SBA
Santa Barbara
7,387 86%
SBA → SFO
San Francisco
7,381 79.2%
PHX → SBA
Santa Barbara
6,831 83.3%
SBA → PHX
Phoenix
6,831 85.7%
DEN → SBA
Santa Barbara
6,705 78.3%
SBA → DEN
Denver
6,705 84.5%

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.