Carrier route record
UASFO→MFR
United Airlines · San Francisco to Medford
- Flights
- 406
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 39%
- 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 MFR lands a B+, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 406 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on SFO to MFR from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 406 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.2%
Every carrier on SFO to MFR, 1,029 flights
These figures cover 406 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on SFO to MFR
United flew 406 of the 1,029 flights on SFO to MFR, about 39% of it. Its 78.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 79.5% to United at 78.8%.
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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 623 | 79.5% | 80 min | 1.77% | B |
| United Airlines (this page) | 406 | 78.8% | 51 min | 0.00% | B+ |
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 28 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–8am—
- 8am–11am211 flights82.9%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm35 flights97.1%
- 8pm–5am159 flights69.2%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 97.1% on time. The full set of windows spans 28 points.
Across the year
United on SFO to MFR through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025184 flights83.7%
- Oct–Dec 202586 flights82.6%
- Jan–Mar 20263 flights—
- Apr–Jun 2026133 flights69.2%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 78.8% on time across 406 flights.
United on SFO to MFR did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 83.7% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 69.2%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 135 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.2%. 14 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 53% of the 4,420 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
53% 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 4,420 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 53 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 4,420 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.2% 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 roughly 50 minutes, 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 73.6% on time across 406 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. 406 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 MFR
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 406 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 78.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 406 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to MFR, every carrier
- United on MFR to SFO, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on SFO to MFR79.5%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.