Flight number record
UA 2853
United Airlines · San Antonio to Denver
- Route
- SAT → DEN
- Departs
- 08:30
- Flights
- 285
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 2853, check with United Airlines.
UA 2853 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 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 285 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 2853's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 71 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 281 completed flights
Avg delay
103 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.40%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
5.7%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 285 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 2853 flies
UA 2853 flies SAT to DEN without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:30, used on 62 of 285 flights, with 08:45 (51 flights) and 08:53 (40 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 08:3062 flights21.8%
- Departs 08:4551 flights17.9%
- Departs 08:5340 flights14.0%
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 08:30 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and UA 2853 runs level with that at 84.7%. 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 2853 next to SAT to DEN
Every carrier on SAT to DEN combined arrived on time 81.0% of the time across 3,027 flights, so UA 2853 is 4 points ahead of it. United flew 1,207 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 81.6% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight beats by 6 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 2853thin sample | 285 | 84.7% | 103 min | 1.40% | B |
| All United Airlines on SAT–DEN | 1,207 | 81.6% | 78 min | 0.58% | B+ |
| All carriers on SAT–DEN | 3,027 | 81.0% | 68 min | 0.43% | B+ |
| United Airlines, whole network | 821,041 | 79.0% | 72 min | 1.01% | B |
Across the year
UA 2853 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter UA 2853 held fairly steady: 81.1% in Jul–Sep 2025, 83.6% in Oct–Dec 2025, 85.1% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 86.7% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 6 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202537 flights81.1%
- Oct–Dec 202567 flights83.6%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights85.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights86.7%
Scale runs 75% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 2853 did best on Sunday at 92.5% on time and worst on Wednesday at 70.7%. Each day rests on about 41 flights, so a gap of 22 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why UA 2853 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 73% of the 4,444 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.
- 73%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 6%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 73%, 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 3,246 of the 4,444 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,444 delay minutes reported on UA 2853.
Cancellations sit at 1.40% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.7% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 794 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The same number turns up on three other city pairs in the data, including DEN to IAD (130), DFW to DEN (49) and DEN to MIA (19), but none flew often enough under UA 2853 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to SAT to DEN only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 285 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 2853
For a booking, read UA 2853 as 84.7% on time with 1.40% cancelled over 285 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- SAT to DEN, every carrier and departure
- DEN to SAT, the return direction
- San Antonio International (SAT) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.