Carrier route record
UASFO→BUR
United Airlines · San Francisco to Burbank
- Flights
- 1,663
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 54%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on SFO to BUR lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,663 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 924 at 79.2% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on SFO to BUR from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,658 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.12%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
74.9%
Every carrier on SFO to BUR, 3,101 flights
These figures cover 1,663 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on SFO to BUR
United flew 1,663 of the 3,101 flights on SFO to BUR, most of the route. Its 80.2% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 80.2% to Southwest at 49.7%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 79.2% 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 (this page) | 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 SkyWest and Southwest is 30 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 30 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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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 39 points, against 30 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am56 flights98.2%
- 8am–11am515 flights85.2%
- 11am–2pm45 flights59.1%
- 2pm–5pm485 flights73.0%
- 5pm–8pm289 flights81.2%
- 8pm–5am273 flights81.9%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 59.1% on time against 98.2% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 515 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on SFO to BUR through the year
June is the worst month at 68.0% on time, 26 points below October, the best at 93.9%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 182 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 73.4%, a spread of 12 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on SFO to BUR runs when it is late
United on SFO to BUR often beats the schedule: 428 of 1,658 completed flights, 26%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 329 late arrivals split 109 under half an hour, 119 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 101 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early428 flights25.8%
- Within 15 min901 flights54.3%
- 15–29 min late109 flights6.6%
- 30–59 min late119 flights7.2%
- 1–2 hours late79 flights4.8%
- 2+ hours late22 flights1.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,658 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
65 of 347 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. 47 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on SFO to BUR
The latest arrival of the period was on 28 August 2026, 5 hours 5 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in August 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 28 August 2026 | 5 hours 5 minutes | Carrier |
| 28 August 2026 | 4 hours 25 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 15 February 2026 | 4 hours 12 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 August 2026 | 4 hours 8 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 May 2026 | 3 hours 58 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 18,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
58% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 58 to one. The split is drawn from 18,301 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 98.2% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.12%, 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
6.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 57.8% on time across 1,662 flights, 22 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 22 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,663 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.
What to do with this
Booking United on SFO to BUR
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 93.9% on time and June 68.0%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,658 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to BUR, every carrier
- United on BUR to SFO, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on SFO to BUR79.2%
- Southwest Airlines on SFO to BUR49.7%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Hollywood Burbank (BUR) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.