Carrier route record
UASFO→DCA
United Airlines · San Francisco to Washington
- Flights
- 727
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 67%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on SFO to DCA lands a B+, about a point 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 727 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on SFO to DCA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 719 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.55%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.4%
Every carrier on SFO to DCA, 1,090 flights
These figures cover 727 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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.
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 SFO to DCA
United flew 727 of the 1,090 flights on SFO to DCA, most of the route. Its 78.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 78.4% to Alaska at 78.3%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 727 | 78.4% | 58 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 363 | 78.3% | 51 min | 0.83% | B+ |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on SFO to DCA
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 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am363 flights88.0%
- 11am–2pm209 flights76.8%
- 2pm–5pm155 flights58.7%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.0% of the time, against 58.7% for the afternoon window. That is 29 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 363 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on SFO to DCA through the year
July is the worst month at 63.3% on time, 32 points below January, the best at 94.9%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 73.8%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on SFO to DCA runs when it is late
United on SFO to DCA often beats the schedule: 296 of 719 completed flights, 41%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 155 late arrivals split 47 under half an hour, 54 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 54 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early296 flights41.2%
- Within 15 min268 flights37.3%
- 15–29 min late47 flights6.5%
- 30–59 min late54 flights7.5%
- 1–2 hours late41 flights5.7%
- 2+ hours late13 flights1.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 719 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
16 of 125 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 13% of them. In the other direction, 46 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 DCA.
The worst days
Worst days for United on SFO to DCA
The latest arrival of the period was on 28 May 2026, 7 hours 1 minute behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in November 2025.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 28 May 2026 | 7 hours 1 minute | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 9 April 2026 | 4 hours 22 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 3 November 2025 | 3 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 November 2025 | 3 hours 8 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 6 November 2025 | 2 hours 45 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 52% of the 8,920 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%National Airspace System
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,920 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 36 to one. The split is drawn from 8,920 reported delay minutes.
52% 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 4,635 minutes out of 8,920, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.55%, 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
7.5% 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 2,442 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 74.8% on time across 727 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 727 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 SFO to DCA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 727 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 78.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 719 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to DCA, every carrier
- United on DCA to SFO, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on SFO to DCA78.3%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.