Carrier route record

UAMSP→SFO

United Airlines · Minneapolis to San Francisco

Flights: 301
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 16%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.

United on MSP 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, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 301 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so United on MSP to SFO runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 53 extra late arrivals.

On time

72.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 300 completed flights

Avg delay

76 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.33%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

70.5%

Every carrier on MSP to SFO, 1,919 flights

These figures cover 301 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.3% 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 MSP to SFO

United flew 301 of the 1,919 flights on MSP to SFO, about 16% of it. Its 72.3% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 72.3% to SkyWest at 70.0%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on MSP to SFO
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines (this page)thin sample	301	72.3%	76 min	0.33%	C+
Delta Air Lines	1,445	70.1%	53 min	0.76%	C+
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	173	70.0%	69 min	0.58%	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 49 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–8am42 flights85.7%
8am–11am43 flights37.2%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm91 flights83.3%
5pm–8pm125 flights72.0%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 30% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 85.7% of the time, against 37.2% for the morning 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 125 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

United on MSP to SFO through the year

Jul–Sep 202543 flights86.0%
Oct–Dec 202572 flights84.5%
Jan–Mar 202685 flights83.5%
Apr–Jun 2026101 flights48.5%

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 72.3% on time across 301 flights.

United on MSP to SFO did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 86.0% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 48.5%, a swing of 38 points on roughly 75 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, Monday is the strongest day at 82.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 62.8%. 19 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 60% of the 6,265 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.

National Airspace System
60%
Late-arriving aircraft
26%
Carrier
14%

60% 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 3,779 minutes out of 6,265, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 6,265 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.33%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.3% 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 1,589 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 81.0% on time across 301 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 301 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 MSP to SFO

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 301 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 72.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 300 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures