Carrier route record

UASFO→EWR

United Airlines · San Francisco to Newark

Flights: 3,790
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 86%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.

United on SFO to EWR sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 3,790 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on SFO to EWR from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

74.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,689 completed flights

Avg delay

82 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.24%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

76.4%

Every carrier on SFO to EWR, 4,401 flights

These figures cover 3,790 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Carrier by carrier

United against every carrier on SFO to EWR

United flew 3,790 of the 4,401 flights on SFO to EWR, most of the route. Its 74.8% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 86.0% to United at 74.8%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on SFO to EWR
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Alaska Airlines	611	86.0%	60 min	0.82%	A+
United Airlines (this page)	3,790	74.8%	82 min	2.24%	C

Flight by flight

United flight numbers on SFO to EWR

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 26 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am537 flights90.6%
8am–11am729 flights75.4%
11am–2pm733 flights64.2%
2pm–5pm706 flights66.7%
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am1,085 flights79.1%

Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 64.2% on time against 90.6% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 1,085 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

United on SFO to EWR through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, July worst

July is the worst month at 61.9% on time, 25 points below April, the best at 86.7%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 353 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.3%. 11 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 46% of the 76,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
46%
National Airspace System
27%
Carrier
26%
Extreme weather
0%

46% 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 76,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 46 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 76,482 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 90.6% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 2.24% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.42%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

At 2,565 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 68.9% on time across 3,793 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.

The sample behind these figures is 3,790 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 EWR

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 86.7% on time and July 61.9%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,689 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures