Carrier route record
UASFO→RNO
United Airlines · San Francisco to Reno
- Flights
- 905
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 48%
- 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 RNO lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 905 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on SFO to RNO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 901 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.44%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.5%
Every carrier on SFO to RNO, 1,897 flights
These figures cover 905 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 RNO
United flew 905 of the 1,897 flights on SFO to RNO, about 48% of it. Its 76.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 76.5% to SkyWest at 74.6%.
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) | 905 | 76.5% | 56 min | 0.44% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 992 | 74.6% | 75 min | 1.71% | C |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on SFO to RNO
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 18 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–8am4 flights—
- 8am–11am81 flights75.0%
- 11am–2pm204 flights80.8%
- 2pm–5pm77 flights71.4%
- 5pm–8pm253 flights84.9%
- 8pm–5am286 flights67.4%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 84.9% on time. The full set of windows spans 18 points.
Across the year
United on SFO to RNO through the year
June is the worst month at 32.1% on time, 57 points below March, the best at 89.0%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 112 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 68.2%. 17 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 58% of the 12,000 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.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
58% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 11,854 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.44%, 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
7.0% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 192 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 65.6% on time across 905 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 905 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 RNO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 905 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 76.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 901 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to RNO, every carrier
- United on RNO to SFO, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on SFO to RNO74.6%
- 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.