Route reliability record
SFO→AUS
San Francisco to Austin
- Flights
- 2,786
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,504 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,786 SFO to AUS flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,637 at 79.6% on time.
Best time to fly SFO to AUS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.8% of the time and Saturday flights 80.2%, against 71.8% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 79.6% on time across 1,637 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,766 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.47%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
79.6% on time across 1,637 flights
These figures cover 2,786 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% 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
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to AUS
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 79.6% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 40.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 411 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 225 | 87.5% | 69 min | 0.44% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 13 | 84.6% | 43 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 1,637 | 79.6% | 53 min | 0.37% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 500 | 64.8% | 86 min | 1.20% | D |
| Southwest Airlines | 411 | 40.1% | 64 min | 0.00% | F+ |
The spread between United and Southwest is 39 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 39 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on SFO to AUS
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly San Francisco to Austin
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SFO → AUSSan Francisco to Austin | United Airlines | 79.3% | 79.6% | 0.37% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 2332 18:25 |
| 2. SJC → AUSSan Jose to Austin | Southwest Airlines | 73.6% | 73.9% | 0.36% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 3. SFO → AUSSan Francisco to Austin | Delta Air Lines | 64.0% | 64.8% | 1.20% | 8am–11am, Sat | DL 381 13:57 |
| 4. SFO → AUSSan Francisco to Austin | Southwest Airlines | 40.1% | 40.1% | 0.00% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 34 points, against 39 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am333 flights95.8%
- 8am–11am408 flights72.5%
- 11am–2pm968 flights62.2%
- 2pm–5pm278 flights67.8%
- 5pm–8pm643 flights72.3%
- 8pm–5am156 flights82.7%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 62.2% on time against 95.8% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 968 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SFO to AUS by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On SFO to AUS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.8% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 62.2%, a wide gap of 33.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.8%
- 8–11am72.5%
- 11am–2pm62.2%
- 2–5pm67.8%
- 5–8pm72.3%
- 8pm–5am82.7%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
August is the worst month at 57.7% on time, 26 points below September, the best at 84.1%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 260 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 67.1%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 50,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 50,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 29 to one. The split is drawn from 50,392 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 95.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.47%, 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 actually costs
9.9% 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 1,504 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 runs 72.4% on time across 2,788 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 2,786 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in AUS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 84.1% on time and August 57.7%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,766 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SFO to AUS questions
How often is SFO to AUS delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.2% of the 2,786 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to AUS?
United Airlines leads at 79.6% on time across 1,637 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 40.1%, a gap of 39 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SFO to AUS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.8% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 62.2%, 34 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are August delays on SFO to AUS?
August is the weakest month at 57.7% on time, compared with 84.1% in September. Across the year that is 26 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- AUS to SFO — the return legseparate record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on SFO to AUS87.5%
- United Airlines on SFO to AUS79.6%
- Delta Air Lines on SFO to AUS64.8%
- Southwest Airlines on SFO to AUS40.1%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- DEN to AUS, a related route76.2%
- SFO to SEA, a related route72.3%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record87.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record84.6%
- United Airlines on-time record79.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. SFO to AUS and AUS to SFO are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed SFO to AUS’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.