MAD→SFO

Iberia is the only carrier the DOT report shows on MAD to SFO, with 152 flights and an average of 239 passengers aboard each. A single-carrier route gives a delayed passenger no same-day alternative on the same ticket, which is worth knowing before booking a tight onward connection.

The DOT's international report puts 34 flights on the pair in May 2026, the busiest month of the window, and 0 in March 2026, the thinnest. A summer-to-winter swing of that size means the winter schedule is a different operation: fewer frequencies, so a cancellation leaves a longer wait for the next seat.

EUROCONTROL's figures for Madrid Barajas as a whole, every airline and every destination: 67.6% of departures and 78.0% of arrivals within 15 minutes of schedule from 1 January to 21 October 2026, with 93.1% of scheduled flights operated. The last seven days ran at 62.5% for departures, 5 points worse than the year so far. Air traffic flow management delay attributed to the airport averaged 0.4 minutes per arriving flight this year, 1.4 over the last week.

Every US route from Madrid Barajas, and its full punctuality record

San Francisco International is scored on this site from the DOT's domestic data: 75.3% of its 148,532 domestic departures arrived on time over the last twelve months, with delayed flights running about an hour late, and 1.00% were cancelled. Those are domestic flights, not this route, but an arriving transatlantic flight shares the same runways, the same weather and the same ground delay programmes, so a bad day at SFO reaches a flight from MAD just as surely. The airport's own page has the hour-by-hour and month-by-month detail, and its live FAA status appears above when the FAA has something to say.

San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics, hour by hour and month by month

Every flight that departs Madrid Barajas falls under Regulation (EC) 261/2004, whichever airline flies it and wherever it lands. If it arrives at San Francisco International three hours or more late, or is cancelled with under 14 days' notice, and the cause was within the airline's control, each passenger is owed €600 (€300 if the airline got you there under four hours late), on top of rebooking and care. Weather, air traffic control restrictions and strikes outside the airline are the usual exemptions. The return flight from SFO is covered only when the carrier is EU based. The sector is about 5,797 miles, 9,327 km, which puts it in the top distance band.

Delayed three hours or more? Check a claim with Compensair →

There is no grade to give MAD to SFO without a route record, and this site does not invent one. What the three sources support: roughly a weekly round trip, a single carrier, a departure airport that gets 68% of its departures away on time and an arrival airport that runs 75% on time domestically. Leave two hours for any onward connection at SFO; immigration comes before the connecting flight.

• Madrid Barajas (MAD): every US route
• San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
• MAD to JFK, New York (JFK)3,154 flights
• MAD to MIA, Miami (MIA)2,708 flights
• MAD to BOS, Boston (BOS)1,650 flights
• MAD to DFW, Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW)1,282 flights
• LHR to SFO, from London4,340 flights
• FRA to SFO, from Frankfurt2,330 flights
• CDG to SFO, from Paris1,679 flights
• MUC to SFO, from Munich1,415 flights
• Every Europe-to-US route and airport

Spain publishes no route-level punctuality, so this page cannot grade the route. The UK pages in this section can, because the CAA does.