Route reliability record
AUS→SFO
Austin to San Francisco
- Flights
- 2,788
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,504 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,788 AUS to SFO flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,638 at 75.5% on time.
Best time to fly AUS to SFO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.4%, against 72.4% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 75.5% on time across 1,638 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,770 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.54%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
75.5% on time across 1,638 flights
These figures cover 2,788 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on AUS to SFO
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 75.5% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 57.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 411 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 13 | 84.6% | 17 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 226 | 84.4% | 55 min | 0.88% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 1,638 | 75.5% | 76 min | 0.37% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 500 | 69.2% | 63 min | 1.00% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 411 | 57.0% | 55 min | 0.49% | D+ |
The spread between United and Southwest is 19 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 19 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on AUS to SFO
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Austin to San Francisco
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. AUS → SFOAustin to San Francisco | United Airlines | 75.2% | 75.5% | 0.37% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 2177 07:00 |
| 2. AUS → SJCAustin to San Jose | Southwest Airlines | 73.7% | 74.0% | 0.37% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. AUS → SFOAustin to San Francisco | Delta Air Lines | 68.5% | 69.2% | 1.00% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 381 07:10 |
| 4. AUS → SFOAustin to San Francisco | Southwest Airlines | 56.7% | 57.0% | 0.49% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 59 points, against 19 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am676 flights90.3%
- 8am–11am623 flights68.7%
- 11am–2pm522 flights68.5%
- 2pm–5pm581 flights66.9%
- 5pm–8pm287 flights70.5%
- 8pm–5am99 flights31.3%
Scale runs 25% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 31.3% on time, against 90.3% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 676 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter AUS to SFO by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On AUS to SFO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 31.3%, a wide gap of 59.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.3%
- 8–11am68.7%
- 11am–2pm68.5%
- 2–5pm66.9%
- 5–8pm70.5%
- 8pm–5am31.3%
best all US flightsScale 25% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 32 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
Delays peak in May, when the on-time rate falls to 53.2%. March is the strongest month at 85.2%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 32 points. December was the busiest month here, with 261 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.3%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 48% of the 52,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%National Airspace System
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% 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 25,000 minutes out of 52,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 51,532 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.3% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.54%, 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 stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.4% 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 1,504 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 return leg runs 71.8% on time across 2,786 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 2,788 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SFO after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 85.2% on time and May 53.2%, a swing of 32 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 2,770 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
AUS to SFO questions
How often is AUS to SFO delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.6% of the 2,788 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on AUS to SFO?
United Airlines leads at 75.5% on time across 1,638 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 57.0%, a gap of 19 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on AUS to SFO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 31.3%, 59 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are May delays on AUS to SFO?
May is the weakest month at 53.2% on time, compared with 85.2% in March. Across the year that is 32 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to AUS — the return legseparate record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on AUS to SFO84.4%
- United Airlines on AUS to SFO75.5%
- Delta Air Lines on AUS to SFO69.2%
- Southwest Airlines on AUS to SFO57.0%
- AUS to DEN, a related route78.9%
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- AUS to DFW, a related route74.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record84.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record84.4%
- United Airlines on-time record75.5%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. AUS to SFO and SFO to AUS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.