Carrier route record
UAMFR→SFO
United Airlines · Medford to San Francisco
- Flights
- 397
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 39%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on MFR to SFO draws a D+. Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about 55 minutes behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 397 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so United on MFR to SFO runs 14 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 143 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
63.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 397 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
63.7%
Every carrier on MFR to SFO, 1,019 flights
These figures cover 397 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on MFR to SFO
United flew 397 of the 1,019 flights on MFR to SFO, about 39% of it. Its 63.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 63.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 64.1% to United at 63.0%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 622 | 64.1% | 81 min | 1.29% | D |
| United Airlines (this page) | 397 | 63.0% | 54 min | 0.00% | D+ |
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.
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 49 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am183 flights89.1%
- 8am–11am3 flights—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm211 flights39.8%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 30% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.1% of the time, against 39.8% for the afternoon window. That is 49 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 211 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on MFR to SFO through the year
- Jul–Sep 202560 flights85.0%
- Oct–Dec 202587 flights79.3%
- Jan–Mar 20263 flights—
- Apr–Jun 2026132 flights49.2%
- Jul–Sep 2026115 flights54.8%
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 63.0% on time across 397 flights.
United on MFR to SFO did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 85.0% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 49.2%, a swing of 36 points on roughly 99 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.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 74.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 56.1%, a spread of 18 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on MFR to SFO runs when it is late
The 147 late arrivals split 57 under half an hour, 51 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 39 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early45 flights11.3%
- Within 15 min205 flights51.6%
- 15–29 min late57 flights14.4%
- 30–59 min late51 flights12.8%
- 1–2 hours late31 flights7.8%
- 2+ hours late8 flights2.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 397 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 111 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 7 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 43 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 United on MFR to SFO
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 August 2026, 8 hours 41 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 2 August 2026 | 8 hours 41 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 October 2025 | 6 hours 59 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 June 2026 | 6 hours 32 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 May 2026 | 3 hours 34 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 27 July 2026 | 3 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 58% of the 7,950 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%National Airspace System
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
58% 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 4,604 minutes out of 7,950, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 7,950 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
9.8% 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 329 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.1% on time across 397 flights, 16 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 16 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 397 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 United on MFR to SFO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 397 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 63.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 397 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.