Flight number record
UA 2386
United Airlines · San Francisco to Washington
- Route
- SFO → DCA
- Departs
- 13:39
- Flights
- 364
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 2386, check with United Airlines.
UA 2386 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so UA 2386 runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 82 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 362 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.55%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
11.9%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 364 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When UA 2386 flies
UA 2386 flies SFO to DCA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 13:39, used on 61 of 364 flights, with 14:03 (56 flights) and 14:18 (46 flights) next.
- Departs 13:3961 flights16.8%
- Departs 14:0356 flights15.4%
- Departs 14:1846 flights12.6%
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 13:39 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and UA 2386 runs 9 points worse at 69.1%. 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 2386 next to SFO to DCA
Every carrier on SFO to DCA combined arrived on time 78.4% of the time across 1,090 flights, so UA 2386 is 9 points behind it. United flew 727 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 78.4% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight trails by 10 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 2386thin sample | 364 | 69.1% | 61 min | 0.55% | C+ |
| All United Airlines on SFO–DCA | 727 | 78.4% | 58 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| All carriers on SFO–DCA | 1,090 | 78.4% | 55 min | 0.64% | B+ |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 2386 quarter by quarter
UA 2386 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 83.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 47.5%, a swing of 36 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 flights83.3%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights72.8%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights79.5%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights64.8%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights47.5%
Scale runs 40% to 90%.
By weekday, UA 2386 ranged from 65.4% on Thursday to 76.0% on Saturday. 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 2386 runs when it is late
UA 2386 often beats the schedule: 119 of 362 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 112 late arrivals split 28 under half an hour, 41 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 43 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early119 flights32.9%
- Within 15 min131 flights36.2%
- 15–29 min late28 flights7.7%
- 30–59 min late41 flights11.3%
- 1–2 hours late32 flights8.8%
- 2+ hours late11 flights3.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 362 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
14 of 103 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. In the other direction, 23 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 DCA.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 2386
The latest arrival of the period was on 28 May 2026, 7 hours 1 minute behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in November 2025.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 28 May 2026 | 7 hours 1 minute | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 3 November 2025 | 3 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 November 2025 | 3 hours 8 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 6 November 2025 | 2 hours 45 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 23 August 2026 | 2 hours 38 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why UA 2386 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 47% of the 6,848 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%National Airspace System
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,848 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 40 to one. The split is drawn from 6,848 delay minutes reported on UA 2386.
Cancellations are rare at 0.55%, 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
11.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 2,442 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 three other city pairs in the data, including BUR to SFO (165), PDX to SFO (45) and ORD to SFO (37), but none flew often enough under UA 2386 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to SFO to DCA only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 364 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 2386
For a booking, UA 2386 is one of the weaker ways to fly SFO to DCA: 9 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to DCA, every carrier and departure
- DCA to SFO, the return direction
- United Airlines 1678 on the same route88.0%
- Alaska Airlines 8 on the same route78.3%
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) 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.