Carrier route record
UAEWR→SFO
United Airlines · Newark to San Francisco
- Flights
- 3,793
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 86%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on EWR to SFO sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 3,793 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so United on EWR to SFO runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 87 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,690 completed flights
Avg delay
92 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.53%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
69.8%
Every carrier on EWR to SFO, 4,403 flights
These figures cover 3,793 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on EWR to SFO
United flew 3,793 of the 4,403 flights on EWR to SFO, most of the route. Its 68.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 69.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 75.5% to United at 68.9%.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 610 | 75.5% | 69 min | 0.98% | B+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 3,793 | 68.9% | 92 min | 2.53% | C |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on EWR to SFO
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am713 flights78.8%
- 8am–11am764 flights70.8%
- 11am–2pm584 flights71.4%
- 2pm–5pm858 flights69.9%
- 5pm–8pm592 flights55.3%
- 8pm–5am282 flights58.6%
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.3% on time, against 78.8% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 858 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on EWR to SFO through the year
June is the worst month at 50.1% on time, 30 points below March, the best at 79.9%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. June was the busiest month here, with 352 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.0%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 105,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 37,000 of the 105,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 105,339 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 78.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.53%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 2,565 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.8% on time across 3,790 flights, 6 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,793 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.
What to do with this
Booking United on EWR to SFO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 79.9% on time and June 50.1%, a swing of 30 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 3,690 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to SFO, every carrier
- United on SFO to EWR, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on EWR to SFO75.5%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.