Flight number record
UA 1208
United Airlines · Denver to Sacramento
- Route
- DEN → SMF
- Departs
- 16:03
- Flights
- 363
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1208, check with United Airlines.
UA 1208 lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
81.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 361 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.28%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 363 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When UA 1208 flies
UA 1208 flies DEN to SMF without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 16:03, used on 89 of 363 flights, with 16:05 (53 flights) and 16:10 (53 flights) next.
- Departs 16:0389 flights24.5%
- Departs 16:0553 flights14.6%
- Departs 16:1053 flights14.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 16:03 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and UA 1208 runs 9 points better at 81.2%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
UA 1208 next to DEN to SMF
Every carrier on DEN to SMF combined arrived on time 73.2% of the time across 3,853 flights, so UA 1208 is 8 points ahead of it. United flew 1,791 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 80.5% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight beats by 2 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1208thin sample | 363 | 81.2% | 68 min | 0.28% | B+ |
| All United Airlines on DEN–SMF | 1,791 | 80.5% | 62 min | 0.11% | B+ |
| All carriers on DEN–SMF | 3,853 | 73.2% | 56 min | 0.29% | C+ |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 1208 quarter by quarter
UA 1208 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 85.6% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 70.5%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 73 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights80.0%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights85.4%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights85.6%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights80.2%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights70.5%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
By weekday, UA 1208 ranged from 77.4% on Monday to 88.5% on Tuesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 11 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 1208 runs when it is late
UA 1208 often beats the schedule: 97 of 361 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 68 late arrivals split 23 under half an hour, 16 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 29 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early97 flights26.9%
- Within 15 min196 flights54.3%
- 15–29 min late23 flights6.4%
- 30–59 min late16 flights4.4%
- 1–2 hours late19 flights5.3%
- 2+ hours late10 flights2.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 361 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
12 of 68 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. 12 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 1208
The latest arrival of the period was on 29 July 2026, 4 hours 50 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 29 July 2026 | 4 hours 50 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 June 2026 | 3 hours 39 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 April 2026 | 3 hours 38 minutes | Carrier |
| 28 July 2026 | 3 hours 27 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 August 2026 | 3 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why UA 1208 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 4,602 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,602 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 23 to one. The split is drawn from 4,602 delay minutes reported on UA 1208.
Cancellations are rare at 0.28%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 909 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The same number turns up on one other city pair in the data, including MCI to DEN (36), but none flew often enough under UA 1208 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to DEN to SMF only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 363 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking UA 1208
For a booking, read UA 1208 as 81.2% on time with 0.28% cancelled over 363 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to SMF, every carrier and departure
- SMF to DEN, the return direction
- United Airlines 2132 on the same route70.6%
- United Airlines 1415 on the same route81.4%
- United Airlines 2149 on the same route93.2%
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Sacramento International (SMF) delay statistics
- United Airlines on-time record
- Every United Airlines flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
A flight number here means United Airlines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.