Route reliability record
SFO→MFR
San Francisco to Medford
- Flights
- 1,017
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 329 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,017 SFO to MFR flights, of which United Airlines flew 397 at 79.1% on time.
Best time to fly SFO to MFR: a 5pm–8pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 97.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.9%, against 78.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 997 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.08%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
79.1% on time across 397 flights
These figures cover 1,017 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to MFR
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 397 | 79.1% | 58 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 620 | 77.3% | 79 min | 1.77% | B |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 79.1%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly San Francisco to Medford
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SFO → MFRSan Francisco to Medford | United Airlines | 79.1% | 79.1% | 0.00% | 5pm–8pm, Sun | — |
| 2. SFO → MFRSan Francisco to Medford | SkyWest Airlines | 75.9% | 77.3% | 1.77% | 8pm–5am, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am363 flights80.0%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm324 flights75.6%
- 5pm–8pm39 flights97.4%
- 8pm–5am291 flights75.5%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 97.4% on time. The full set of windows spans 22 points.
Explore
Filter SFO to MFR by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On SFO to MFR, the best departure window is 5pm–8pm at 97.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 75.5%, a wide gap of 21.9 points. All US flights leaving 5pm–8pm ran 68.0%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am80.0%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm75.6%
- 5–8pm97.4%
- 8pm–5am75.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
September is the best month on the calendar at 95.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.8%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 16,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 15,514 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.08% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.88%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.3% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 329 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 5pm–8pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 63.7% on time across 1,019 flights, 14 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 14 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,017 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MFR after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,017 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 78.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 997 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SFO to MFR questions
How often is SFO to MFR delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.0% of the 1,017 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to MFR?
United Airlines leads at 79.1% on time across 397 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 77.3%, a gap of 2 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SFO to MFR?
The 5pm–8pm departure window is the strongest at 97.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 75.5%, 22 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are May delays on SFO to MFR?
May is the weakest month at 66.3% on time, compared with 95.5% in September. Across the year that is 29 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- MFR to SFO — the return legseparate record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- United Airlines on SFO to MFR79.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on SFO to MFR77.3%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- SEA to MFR, a related route86.2%
- SFO to SEA, a related route72.3%
- United Airlines on-time record79.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record77.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. SFO to MFR and MFR to SFO are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.