Carrier route record
UAMFR→SFO
United Airlines · Medford to San Francisco
- Flights
- 406
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 39%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on MFR to SFO sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 406 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so United on MFR to SFO runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 40 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 406 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
70.3%
Every carrier on MFR to SFO, 1,031 flights
These figures cover 406 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on MFR to SFO
United flew 406 of the 1,031 flights on MFR to SFO, about 39% of it. Its 73.6% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 73.6% to SkyWest at 68.0%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 406 | 73.6% | 53 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 625 | 68.0% | 79 min | 1.28% | C |
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 36 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–8am194 flights92.3%
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm211 flights56.4%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.3% of the time, against 56.4% for the afternoon window. That is 36 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 2025184 flights88.6%
- Oct–Dec 202587 flights79.3%
- Jan–Mar 20263 flights—
- Apr–Jun 2026132 flights49.2%
Scale runs 40% to 95%. 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 73.6% on time across 406 flights.
United on MFR to SFO did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 88.6% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 49.2%, a swing of 39 points on roughly 135 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 82.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 67.2%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 57% of the 5,692 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 57%National Airspace System
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
57% 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 3,244 minutes out of 5,692, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 5,692 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.81% 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
6.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 78.8% on time across 406 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 406 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. 406 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 73.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 406 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MFR to SFO, every carrier
- United on SFO to MFR, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on MFR to SFO68.0%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
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.