Carrier route record
UASFO→RNO
United Airlines · San Francisco to Reno
- Flights
- 944
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 48%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on SFO to RNO sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 944 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so United on SFO to RNO runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 57 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 939 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.42%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.0%
Every carrier on SFO to RNO, 1,979 flights
These figures cover 944 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on SFO to RNO
United flew 944 of the 1,979 flights on SFO to RNO, about 48% of it. Its 71.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 72.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 72.5% to United at 71.6%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,035 | 72.5% | 79 min | 1.64% | C |
| United Airlines (this page) | 944 | 71.6% | 56 min | 0.42% | C+ |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on SFO to RNO
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 matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am4 flights—
- 8am–11am63 flights71.0%
- 11am–2pm222 flights76.4%
- 2pm–5pm127 flights55.1%
- 5pm–8pm248 flights85.0%
- 8pm–5am280 flights63.1%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 85.0% on time. The full set of windows spans 30 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 81.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 62.8%, a spread of 19 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on SFO to RNO runs when it is late
The 267 late arrivals split 89 under half an hour, 97 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 81 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early204 flights21.7%
- Within 15 min468 flights49.8%
- 15–29 min late89 flights9.5%
- 30–59 min late97 flights10.3%
- 1–2 hours late58 flights6.2%
- 2+ hours late23 flights2.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 939 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
44 of 277 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. 34 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on SFO to RNO
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 June 2026, 6 hours behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in February 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 5 June 2026 | 6 hours | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 February 2026 | 4 hours 35 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 19 February 2026 | 4 hours 9 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 20 April 2026 | 3 hours 41 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 15 February 2026 | 3 hours 36 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 59% of the 15,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
59% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 21 to one. The split is drawn from 14,957 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.42%, 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
8.6% 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.
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 57.7% on time across 943 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. 944 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. 944 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 71.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 939 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 RNO72.5%
- 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 7.05 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.