Carrier route record
UASFO→DFW
United Airlines · San Francisco to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 854
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 21%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on SFO to DFW lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 854 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on SFO to DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 842 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.47%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.5%
Every carrier on SFO to DFW, 4,127 flights
These figures cover 854 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on SFO to DFW
United flew 854 of the 4,127 flights on SFO to DFW, about 21% of it. Its 77.4% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 77.4% to Frontier at 55.7%. Two 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) | 854 | 77.4% | 54 min | 0.47% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 3,072 | 73.4% | 100 min | 2.80% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 17 | 62.5% | 81 min | 5.88% | D− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 184 | 55.7% | 55 min | 3.80% | D− |
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 854 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am388 flights77.7%
- 11am–2pm53 flights75.5%
- 2pm–5pm203 flights77.3%
- 5pm–8pm100 flights81.4%
- 8pm–5am110 flights74.1%
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 81.4% on time. The full set of windows spans 7 points.
Across the year
United on SFO to DFW through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 90.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. June was the busiest month here, with 110 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 73.8%. 6 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 10,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 51 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 10,268 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.47%, below the national 1.81% 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
5.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,464 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.8% on time across 852 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 854 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 DFW
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 854 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 77.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 842 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to DFW, every carrier
- United on DFW to SFO, the return leg
- American Airlines on SFO to DFW73.4%
- Frontier Airlines on SFO to DFW55.7%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.