Flight number record
UA 2862
United Airlines · Washington to San Francisco
- Route
- IAD → SFO
- Departs
- 14:36
- Flights
- 362
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 2862, check with United Airlines.
UA 2862 lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 362 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
80.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.28%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
7.8%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 362 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Schedule
When UA 2862 flies
UA 2862 flies IAD to SFO without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 14:36, used on 98 of 362 flights, with 14:51 (70 flights) and 15:00 (55 flights) next.
- Departs 14:3698 flights27.1%
- Departs 14:5170 flights19.3%
- Departs 15:0055 flights15.2%
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 14:36 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and UA 2862 runs 9 points better at 80.8%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Against the route
UA 2862 next to IAD to SFO
Every carrier on IAD to SFO combined arrived on time 77.5% of the time across 2,688 flights, so UA 2862 is 3 points ahead of it. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight beats by 2 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 2862thin sample | 362 | 80.8% | 76 min | 0.28% | B+ |
| All United Airlines on IAD–SFO | 2,688 | 77.5% | 72 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| All carriers on IAD–SFO | 2,688 | 77.5% | 72 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 2862 quarter by quarter
UA 2862 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 90.0% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 77.2%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 72 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 flights90.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights77.2%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights77.5%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights85.7%
- Jul–Sep 202659 flights79.3%
Scale runs 70% to 95%.
By weekday, UA 2862 did best on Sunday at 90.2% on time and worst on Friday at 71.2%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 19 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 2862 runs when it is late
UA 2862 often beats the schedule: 136 of 360 completed flights, 38%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 69 late arrivals split 23 under half an hour, 18 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 28 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early136 flights37.8%
- Within 15 min155 flights43.1%
- 15–29 min late23 flights6.4%
- 30–59 min late18 flights5.0%
- 1–2 hours late13 flights3.6%
- 2+ hours late15 flights4.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 360 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 75 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 23 still arrived on time. 17 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 2862
The latest arrival of the period was on 31 January 2026, 5 hours 50 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as national airspace system delay.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 31 January 2026 | 5 hours 50 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 December 2025 | 5 hours 25 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 7 August 2026 | 5 hours 21 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 28 May 2026 | 4 hours 38 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 January 2026 | 3 hours 15 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why UA 2862 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 53% of the 5,243 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%National Airspace System
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
53% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 2,788 minutes out of 5,243, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 5,243 delay minutes reported on UA 2862.
Cancellations are rare at 0.28%, 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
7.8% 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 three other city pairs in the data, including SFO to TPA (36), MCO to IAD (21) and ORD to MCO (21), but none flew often enough under UA 2862 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to IAD to SFO only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 362 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 2862
For a booking, read UA 2862 as 80.8% on time with 0.28% cancelled over 362 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- IAD to SFO, every carrier and departure
- SFO to IAD, the return direction
- United Airlines 1757 on the same route58.8%
- United Airlines 367 on the same route82.6%
- United Airlines 1434 on the same route77.4%
- United Airlines 1095 on the same route85.0%
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) 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.