Flight number record
UA 1849
United Airlines · San Francisco to Washington
- Route
- SFO → IAD
- Departs
- 08:25
- Flights
- 344
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1849, check with United Airlines.
UA 1849 earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 344 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 1849's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 67 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 337 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.74%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.9%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 344 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 1849 flies
UA 1849 flies SFO to IAD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:25, used on 166 of 344 flights, with 08:10 (135 flights) next.
- Departs 08:25166 flights48.3%
- Departs 08:10135 flights39.2%
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 08:25 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and UA 1849 runs level with that at 84.0%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
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Against the route
UA 1849 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 1849 is about level with it. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight beats by 5 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1849thin sample | 344 | 84.0% | 70 min | 1.74% | B |
| 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 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 70.0%, a swing of 21 points on roughly 69 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 flights70.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights84.6%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights90.6%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights85.7%
- Jul–Sep 202641 flights75.0%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
By weekday, UA 1849 ranged from 79.2% on Saturday to 89.8% on Wednesday. With about 49 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 1849 runs when it is late
UA 1849 often beats the schedule: 116 of 337 completed flights, 34%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 54 late arrivals split 20 under half an hour, 14 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 20 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early116 flights34.4%
- Within 15 min167 flights49.6%
- 15–29 min late20 flights5.9%
- 30–59 min late14 flights4.2%
- 1–2 hours late8 flights2.4%
- 2+ hours late12 flights3.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 337 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
5 of 40 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 13% of them. In the other direction, 19 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at IAD.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 1849
The latest arrival of the period was on 29 October 2025, 5 hours 8 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 29 October 2025 | 5 hours 8 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 June 2026 | 3 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 July 2026 | 3 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 November 2025 | 3 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 September 2025 | 2 hours 59 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why UA 1849 runs late
Carrier accounts for 67% of the 3,803 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 67%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 11%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 67%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,552 of the 3,803 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,803 delay minutes reported on UA 1849.
Cancellations sit at 1.74% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.29%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.9% 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 2,418 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.
The same number turns up on one other city pair in the data, including FSD to DEN (21), but none flew often enough under UA 1849 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to SFO to IAD only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 344 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 84.0% on time with 1.74% cancelled over 344 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to IAD, every carrier and departure
- IAD to SFO, the return direction
- United Airlines 1453 on the same route86.2%
- 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
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.