Carrier route record
UASFO→SBP
United Airlines · San Francisco to San Luis Obispo
- Flights
- 304
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 27%
- 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 SBP sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 304 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so United on SFO to SBP runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 79 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 301 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.66%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.1%
Every carrier on SFO to SBP, 1,138 flights
These figures cover 304 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% 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 SBP
United flew 304 of the 1,138 flights on SFO to SBP, about 27% of it. Its 69.4% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 73.1% to United at 69.4%.
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 | 834 | 73.1% | 114 min | 1.32% | C |
| United Airlines (this page)thin sample | 304 | 69.4% | 60 min | 0.66% | C+ |
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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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am103 flights74.8%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm33 flights63.6%
- 5pm–8pm84 flights78.6%
- 8pm–5am84 flights55.6%
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.6% on time, against 78.6% for the 5pm–8pm slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 103 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on SFO to SBP through the year
- Jan–Mar 202643 flights90.7%
- Apr–Jun 2026138 flights64.7%
- Jul–Sep 2026123 flights67.2%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 69.4% on time across 304 flights.
United on SFO to SBP did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 90.7% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 64.7%, a swing of 26 points on roughly 101 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 80.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 59.1%, a spread of 21 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on SFO to SBP runs when it is late
United on SFO to SBP often beats the schedule: 93 of 301 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 92 late arrivals split 29 under half an hour, 35 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 28 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early93 flights30.9%
- Within 15 min116 flights38.5%
- 15–29 min late29 flights9.6%
- 30–59 min late35 flights11.6%
- 1–2 hours late18 flights6.0%
- 2+ hours late10 flights3.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 301 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
18 of 103 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. 7 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on SFO to SBP
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 July 2026, 8 hours 23 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in July 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 2 July 2026 | 8 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 August 2026 | 3 hours 51 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 24 July 2026 | 3 hours 25 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 3 June 2026 | 3 hours 9 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 July 2026 | 2 hours 33 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 64% of the 5,485 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 64%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
64% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 5,485 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 64 to one. The split is drawn from 5,485 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.66%, 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
9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 191 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 51.3% on time across 303 flights, 18 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 18 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 304 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 SBP
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 304 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 69.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 301 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to SBP, every carrier
- United on SBP to SFO, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on SFO to SBP73.1%
- 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.