Carrier route record
UARNO→SFO
United Airlines · Reno to San Francisco
- Flights
- 943
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 48%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on RNO to SFO earns a D+, which is as low as this site's scale goes for a reason. Only 57.7% of flights arrive inside the 15-minute window, 20 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. Late arrivals average about an hour. Treat any tight connection here as a coin flip. That rests on 943 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so United on RNO to SFO runs 20 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 196 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
57.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 938 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.53%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
59.3%
Every carrier on RNO to SFO, 1,980 flights
These figures cover 943 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on RNO to SFO
United flew 943 of the 1,980 flights on RNO to SFO, about 48% of it. Its 57.7% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 59.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 60.8% to United at 57.7%.
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 | 1,037 | 60.8% | 68 min | 2.12% | D |
| United Airlines (this page) | 943 | 57.7% | 61 min | 0.53% | 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 75 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am248 flights89.9%
- 8am–11am269 flights32.3%
- 11am–2pm59 flights78.0%
- 2pm–5pm208 flights67.1%
- 5pm–8pm87 flights14.9%
- 8pm–5am72 flights47.9%
Scale runs 5% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 14.9% on time, against 89.9% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 269 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on RNO to SFO through the year
July is the worst month at 12.1% on time, 81 points below January, the best at 92.8%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 113 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 66.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 50.7%, a spread of 15 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on RNO to SFO runs when it is late
The 397 late arrivals split 97 under half an hour, 157 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 143 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early155 flights16.5%
- Within 15 min386 flights41.2%
- 15–29 min late97 flights10.3%
- 30–59 min late157 flights16.7%
- 1–2 hours late105 flights11.2%
- 2+ hours late38 flights4.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 938 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 263 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 12 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 146 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 RNO to SFO
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 June 2026, 5 hours 21 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as national airspace system delay.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 5 June 2026 | 5 hours 21 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 June 2026 | 4 hours 56 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 April 2026 | 4 hours 37 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 21 February 2026 | 4 hours 33 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 25 May 2026 | 3 hours 52 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 69% of the 24,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 69%National Airspace System
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
69% 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 17,000 minutes out of 24,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 24,181 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.53%, 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 costs
15.2% 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 192 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 71.6% on time across 944 flights, 14 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 14 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 943 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 RNO to SFO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 943 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 57.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 938 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.