Flight number record
UA 1509
United Airlines · San Francisco to Honolulu
- Route
- SFO → HNL
- Departs
- 16:45
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1509, check with United Airlines.
UA 1509 lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 1509's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 57 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 364 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.27%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.5%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 1509 flies
UA 1509 flies SFO to HNL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 16:45, used on 165 of 365 flights, with 16:55 (102 flights) and 16:50 (53 flights) next.
- Departs 16:45165 flights45.2%
- Departs 16:55102 flights27.9%
- Departs 16:5053 flights14.5%
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 16:45 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and UA 1509 runs 11 points better at 83.0%. 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 1509 next to SFO to HNL
Every carrier on SFO to HNL combined arrived on time 80.0% of the time across 2,477 flights, so UA 1509 is 3 points ahead of it. United flew 1,779 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 84.5% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight beats by 4 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1509 | 365 | 83.0% | 76 min | 0.27% | B+ |
| All United Airlines on SFO–HNL | 1,779 | 84.5% | 63 min | 0.11% | B+ |
| All carriers on SFO–HNL | 2,477 | 80.0% | 62 min | 0.97% | B+ |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 1509 quarter by quarter
UA 1509 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 92.4% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 65.6%, a swing of 27 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 202592 flights92.4%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights87.8%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights81.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights65.6%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
By weekday, UA 1509 did best on Tuesday at 90.4% on time and worst on Sunday at 75.0%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 15 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 1509 runs when it is late
UA 1509 often beats the schedule: 145 of 364 completed flights, 40%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 62 late arrivals split 27 under half an hour, 15 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 20 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early145 flights39.8%
- Within 15 min157 flights43.1%
- 15–29 min late27 flights7.4%
- 30–59 min late15 flights4.1%
- 1–2 hours late9 flights2.5%
- 2+ hours late11 flights3.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 364 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 71 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 26 still arrived on time. 17 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 1509
The latest arrival of the period was on 7 December 2025, 8 hours 6 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 7 December 2025 | 8 hours 6 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 January 2026 | 7 hours 31 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 22 March 2026 | 5 hours 17 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 July 2026 | 5 hours 15 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 April 2026 | 4 hours 43 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why UA 1509 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 4,708 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
58% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,708 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 58 to one. The split is drawn from 4,708 delay minutes reported on UA 1509.
Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, 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
5.5% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,398 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.
Every one of the 365 flights under UA 1509 in the data flew SFO to HNL. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 365 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 1509
For a booking, read UA 1509 as 83.0% on time with 0.27% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to HNL, every carrier and departure
- HNL to SFO, the return direction
- United Airlines 1175 on the same route90.7%
- United Airlines 300 on the same route82.2%
- United Airlines 638 on the same route87.0%
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) 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.