Flight number record

UA 1849

United Airlines · San Francisco to Washington

Route: SFO → IAD
Departs: 08:25
Flights: 365
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1849, check with United Airlines.

UA 1849 lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, UA 1849's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 47 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 356 completed flights

Avg delay

80 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.19%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

7.0%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.

Schedule

When UA 1849 flies

UA 1849 flies SFO to IAD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:25, used on 215 of 365 flights, with 08:10 (94 flights) and 08:26 (37 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 08:25215 flights58.9%
Departs 08:1094 flights25.8%
Departs 08:2637 flights10.1%

Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.

A 08:25 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and UA 1849 runs level with that at 82.3%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

UA 1849 next to SFO to IAD

Every carrier on SFO to IAD combined arrived on time 82.5% of the time across 2,788 flights, so UA 1849 is about level with it. United flew 2,690 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 83.8% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight beats by 3 points.

UA 1849 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
UA 1849	365	82.3%	80 min	2.19%	B
All United Airlines on SFO–IAD	2,690	83.8%	64 min	0.74%	B+
All carriers on SFO–IAD	2,788	82.5%	64 min	0.75%	B+
United Airlines, whole network	821,041	79.0%	72 min	1.01%	B

Across the year

UA 1849 quarter by quarter

UA 1849 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 90.6% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 68.5%, a swing of 22 points on roughly 91 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 202592 flights68.5%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights84.6%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights90.6%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights85.7%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, UA 1849 did best on Friday at 90.4% on time and worst on Saturday at 74.5%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 16 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why UA 1849 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 64% of the 5,013 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Carrier
64%
National Airspace System
22%
Late-arriving aircraft
12%
Extreme weather
2%

The largest share of delay minutes, 64%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 3,205 of the 5,013 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,013 delay minutes reported on UA 1849.

Cancellations sit at 2.19% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

7.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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 2,418 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.

Every one of the 365 flights under UA 1849 in the data flew SFO to IAD. 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 1849

For a booking, read UA 1849 as 82.3% on time with 2.19% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.

Where to go next

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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures