Flight number record
UA 488
United Airlines · Burbank to San Francisco
- Route
- BUR → SFO
- Departs
- 07:15
- Flights
- 309
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 488, check with United Airlines.
UA 488 lands a B+, 2 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 about an hour on average. That rests on 309 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
78.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 308 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.32%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
6.5%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 309 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 488 flies
UA 488 flies BUR to SFO without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:15, used on 91 of 309 flights, with 07:02 (73 flights) and 07:17 (36 flights) next.
- Departs 07:1591 flights29.4%
- Departs 07:0273 flights23.6%
- Departs 07:1736 flights11.7%
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 07:15 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and UA 488 runs 10 points worse at 78.9%. 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 488 next to BUR to SFO
Every carrier on BUR to SFO combined arrived on time 59.3% of the time across 3,104 flights, so UA 488 is 20 points ahead of it. United flew 1,662 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 57.8% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, close to this flight's figure.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 488thin sample | 309 | 78.9% | 61 min | 0.32% | B+ |
| All United Airlines on BUR–SFO | 1,662 | 57.8% | 68 min | 0.60% | D+ |
| All carriers on BUR–SFO | 3,104 | 59.3% | 69 min | 1.22% | D |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 488 quarter by quarter
UA 488 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 68.1%, a swing of 29 points on roughly 77 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 202526 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202578 flights84.6%
- Jan–Mar 202661 flights96.7%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights68.1%
- Jul–Sep 202653 flights75.5%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 488 did best on Wednesday at 90.9% on time and worst on Friday at 66.7%. Each day rests on about 44 flights, so a gap of 24 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 488 runs when it is late
The 65 late arrivals split 25 under half an hour, 20 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 20 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early64 flights20.8%
- Within 15 min179 flights58.1%
- 15–29 min late25 flights8.1%
- 30–59 min late20 flights6.5%
- 1–2 hours late16 flights5.2%
- 2+ hours late4 flights1.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 308 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 40 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 3 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 28 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 SFO.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 488
The latest arrival of the period was on 13 February 2026, 9 hours 13 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across February, November, September and May, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 13 February 2026 | 9 hours 13 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 November 2025 | 4 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 September 2025 | 2 hours 59 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 November 2025 | 2 hours 4 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 1 May 2026 | 1 hour 58 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why UA 488 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 70% of the 3,938 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 70%National Airspace System
- 16%Carrier
- 14%Late-arriving aircraft
70% 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 2,749 minutes out of 3,938, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 3,938 delay minutes reported on UA 488.
Cancellations are rare at 0.32%, 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
6.5% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The same number turns up on eight other city pairs in the data, including SFO to RDU (47), SFO to ORD (45) and SFO to IND (34), but none flew often enough under UA 488 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to BUR to SFO only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 309 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 488
For a booking, read UA 488 as 78.9% on time with 0.32% cancelled over 309 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- BUR to SFO, every carrier and departure
- SFO to BUR, the return direction
- United Airlines 1453 on the same route60.8%
- Hollywood Burbank (BUR) 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.