Carrier route record
UASFO→DFW
United Airlines · San Francisco to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 916
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 21%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on SFO to DFW sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. 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 916 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
75.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 903 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.55%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
73.1%
Every carrier on SFO to DFW, 4,262 flights
These figures cover 916 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 DFW
United flew 916 of the 4,262 flights on SFO to DFW, about 21% of it. Its 75.5% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 75.5% to Frontier at 64.3%. 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) | 916 | 75.5% | 55 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 3,094 | 73.0% | 95 min | 2.62% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 35 | 70.6% | 60 min | 2.86% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 217 | 64.3% | 52 min | 4.15% | D− |
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 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 916 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am444 flights77.5%
- 11am–2pm56 flights76.8%
- 2pm–5pm202 flights74.3%
- 5pm–8pm123 flights75.8%
- 8pm–5am91 flights67.8%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 77.5% of the time, against 67.8% for the overnight window. That is 10 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 444 flights scheduled in it.
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 80.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 72.3%, a spread of 9 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on SFO to DFW runs when it is late
United on SFO to DFW often beats the schedule: 240 of 903 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 221 late arrivals split 79 under half an hour, 80 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 62 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early240 flights26.6%
- Within 15 min442 flights48.9%
- 15–29 min late79 flights8.7%
- 30–59 min late80 flights8.9%
- 1–2 hours late48 flights5.3%
- 2+ hours late14 flights1.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 903 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
55 of 226 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 24% of them. In the other direction, 50 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 DFW.
The worst days
Worst days for United on SFO to DFW
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 January 2026, 5 hours 42 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 January 2026 | 5 hours 42 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 18 June 2026 | 5 hours 24 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 January 2026 | 5 hours 17 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 23 August 2026 | 5 hours 9 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 May 2026 | 4 hours 19 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 51 to one. The split is drawn from 12,157 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 77.5% on time here.
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
6.9% 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.
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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 70.2% on time across 914 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 916 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. 916 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 75.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 903 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 DFW73.0%
- Frontier Airlines on SFO to DFW64.3%
- 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
- 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.