Route reliability record
SFO→BUR
San Francisco to Burbank
- Flights
- 3,101
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 326 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,101 SFO to BUR flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,663 at 80.2% on time.
Best time to fly SFO to BUR: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.7% of the time and Saturday flights 81.3%, against 74.9% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 80.2% on time across 1,663 flights.
Key figures
On time
74.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,060 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.06%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
80.2% on time across 1,663 flights
These figures cover 3,101 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to BUR
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 80.2% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 49.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 514 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,663 | 80.2% | 56 min | 0.12% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 924 | 79.2% | 75 min | 2.06% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 514 | 49.7% | 59 min | 2.33% | F |
The spread between United and Southwest is 31 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 31 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly San Francisco to Burbank
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. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SJC → LAXSan Jose to Los Angeles | SkyWest Airlines | 91.3% | 91.7% | 0.44% | 5am–8am, Tue | OO 3883 20:05 |
| 2. SJC → LAXSan Jose to Los Angeles | Delta Air Lines | 89.5% | 91.6% | 2.31% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
| 3. SJC → SNASan Jose to Santa Ana | Southwest Airlines | 85.9% | 86.6% | 0.78% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | — |
| 4. OAK → LGBOakland to Long Beach | Southwest Airlines | 85.4% | 85.7% | 0.32% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. SJC → LGBSan Jose to Long Beach | Southwest Airlines | 84.3% | 84.4% | 0.16% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 20 points, against 31 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am187 flights87.7%
- 8am–11am895 flights80.3%
- 11am–2pm352 flights68.4%
- 2pm–5pm702 flights67.9%
- 5pm–8pm611 flights73.4%
- 8pm–5am354 flights77.9%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.7% of the time, against 67.9% for the afternoon window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 895 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SFO to BUR 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 BUR, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.7% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 67.9%, a wide gap of 19.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.7%
- 8–11am80.3%
- 11am–2pm68.4%
- 2–5pm67.9%
- 5–8pm73.4%
- 8pm–5am77.9%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 33 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.
June is the worst month at 58.5% on time, 33 points below September, the best at 91.2%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 310 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 68.1%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 47,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
58% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 47,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 to one. The split is drawn from 47,238 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 87.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.06% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.26%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.0% 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 326 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 59.3% on time across 3,104 flights, 16 points below 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.
The sample behind these figures is 3,101 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 BUR 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 91.2% on time and June 58.5%, a swing of 33 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 3,060 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SFO to BUR questions
How often is SFO to BUR delayed?
About 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 25.1% of the 3,101 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 BUR?
United Airlines leads at 80.2% on time across 1,663 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 49.7%, a gap of 31 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 BUR?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 67.9%, 20 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 June delays on SFO to BUR?
June is the weakest month at 58.5% on time, compared with 91.2% in September. Across the year that is 33 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
- BUR to SFO — the return legseparate record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Hollywood Burbank (BUR) delay statistics
- United Airlines on SFO to BUR80.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on SFO to BUR79.2%
- Southwest Airlines on SFO to BUR49.7%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- LAS to BUR, a related route78.9%
- SFO to SEA, a related route72.3%
- United Airlines on-time record80.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record79.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record49.7%
- 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 BUR and BUR to SFO are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.