Flight number record
UA 1453
United Airlines · San Francisco to Washington
- Route
- SFO → IAD
- Departs
- 16:55
- Flights
- 298
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1453, check with United Airlines.
UA 1453 earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 50 minutes. That rests on 298 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 1453's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 89 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 297 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.34%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.7%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 298 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Schedule
When UA 1453 flies
UA 1453 flies SFO to IAD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 16:55, used on 87 of 298 flights, with 16:34 (80 flights) and 16:30 (41 flights) next.
- Departs 16:5587 flights29.2%
- Departs 16:3480 flights26.8%
- Departs 16:3041 flights13.8%
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 16:55 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and UA 1453 runs 14 points better at 86.2%. 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 1453 next to SFO to IAD
Every carrier on SFO to IAD combined arrived on time 83.0% of the time across 2,690 flights, so UA 1453 is 3 points ahead of it. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight beats by 7 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1453thin sample | 298 | 86.2% | 50 min | 0.34% | A+ |
| All United Airlines on SFO–IAD | 2,690 | 83.0% | 58 min | 0.63% | B+ |
| All carriers on SFO–IAD | 2,690 | 83.0% | 58 min | 0.63% | B+ |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 1453 quarter by quarter
UA 1453 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 92.2% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 81.6%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 75 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 202519 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202561 flights85.2%
- Jan–Mar 202678 flights92.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights83.5%
- Jul–Sep 202649 flights81.6%
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 1453 did best on Saturday at 92.5% on time and worst on Monday at 73.3%. Each day rests on about 43 flights, so a gap of 19 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 1453 runs when it is late
UA 1453 often beats the schedule: 129 of 297 completed flights, 43%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 41 late arrivals split 13 under half an hour, 17 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 11 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early129 flights43.4%
- Within 15 min127 flights42.8%
- 15–29 min late13 flights4.4%
- 30–59 min late17 flights5.7%
- 1–2 hours late8 flights2.7%
- 2+ hours late3 flights1.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 297 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 69 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 31 still arrived on time. Only 3 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 1453
The latest arrival of the period was on 20 April 2026, 2 hours 25 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 20 April 2026 | 2 hours 25 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 November 2025 | 2 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 May 2026 | 2 hours 1 minute | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 24 November 2025 | 1 hour 39 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 December 2025 | 1 hour 36 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why UA 1453 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 59% of the 2,037 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
59% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 2,037 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 59 to one. The split is drawn from 2,037 delay minutes reported on UA 1453.
Cancellations are rare at 0.34%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.7% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 2,418 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
UA 1453 is not only a SFO to IAD flight. It also flew BUR to SFO (293 flights, 60.8% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 298 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.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BUR to SFOthin sample | 293 | 60.8% | 64 min | 1.71% | D |
What to do with this
Booking UA 1453
For a booking, UA 1453 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 86.2% on time and 0.34% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to IAD, every carrier and departure
- IAD to SFO, the return direction
- United Airlines 1849 on the same route84.0%
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) 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.