Flight number record
UA 500
United Airlines · Indianapolis to San Francisco
- Route
- IND → SFO
- Departs
- 06:00
- Flights
- 296
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 500, check with United Airlines.
UA 500 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 about an hour. That rests on 296 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 500's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 74 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 295 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.34%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.4%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 296 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 500 flies
UA 500 flies IND to SFO without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:00, used on 98 of 296 flights, with 07:15 (43 flights) and 07:22 (36 flights) next.
- Departs 06:0098 flights33.1%
- Departs 07:1543 flights14.5%
- Departs 07:2236 flights12.2%
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 06:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and UA 500 runs 5 points worse 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.
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Against the route
UA 500 next to IND to SFO
Every carrier on IND to SFO combined arrived on time 74.3% of the time across 532 flights, so UA 500 is 10 points ahead of it. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight beats by 6 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 500thin sample | 296 | 84.7% | 64 min | 0.34% | B+ |
| All United Airlines on IND–SFO | 532 | 74.3% | 74 min | 0.38% | C+ |
| All carriers on IND–SFO | 532 | 74.3% | 74 min | 0.38% | C+ |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 500 quarter by quarter
UA 500 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2026 at 93.5% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 77.4%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 59 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 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights84.6%
- Jan–Mar 202650 flights78.0%
- Apr–Jun 202662 flights77.4%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights93.5%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
By weekday, UA 500 ranged from 81.0% on Thursday to 92.7% on Wednesday. With about 42 flights behind each day, a spread of 12 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 500 runs when it is late
UA 500 often beats the schedule: 78 of 295 completed flights, 26%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 45 late arrivals split 14 under half an hour, 15 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 16 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early78 flights26.4%
- Within 15 min172 flights58.3%
- 15–29 min late14 flights4.7%
- 30–59 min late15 flights5.1%
- 1–2 hours late10 flights3.4%
- 2+ hours late6 flights2.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 295 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
10 of 45 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 22% of them. 10 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 500
The latest arrival of the period was on 7 May 2026, 4 hours 15 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 7 May 2026 | 4 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 May 2026 | 4 hours 14 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 January 2026 | 3 hours 40 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 7 March 2026 | 2 hours 37 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 March 2026 | 2 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why UA 500 runs late
Carrier accounts for 53% of the 2,894 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,525 of the 2,894 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,894 delay minutes reported on UA 500.
Cancellations are rare at 0.34%, 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
5.4% 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.
At 1,943 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 four other city pairs in the data, including SFO to PHX (82), SFO to BUR (71) and DEN to IDA (36), but none flew often enough under UA 500 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to IND to SFO only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 296 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 500
For a booking, read UA 500 as 84.7% on time with 0.34% cancelled over 296 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- Indianapolis International (IND) 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
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.