Flight profile · United Airlines
UA1509
San Francisco (SFO) to Honolulu (HNL) · scheduled 4:55 PM – 7:45 PM
How UA1509 performs
1,106 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
UA1509’s scheduled departure has moved during the period FlyerIntel has on file: it typically left around 4:15 PM earlier on, and around 4:45 PM more recently — a 30-minute shift, not the few minutes of day-to-day rounding every published schedule carries. Confirm the current departure time before booking around an older listing.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 1,106 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If UA1509 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where UA1509 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
Ask for the position of UA1509 right now, if receivers on the ground are hearing it. Nothing is requested until you press the button.
Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1509 | 80.8% | 0.09% | -7 min | 6.2% | 1,106 |
| United Airlines on SFO → HNL | 82.7% | 0.30% | -7 min | 5.9% | 5,364 |
| All SFO → HNL flights | 80.0% | 1.04% | -5 min | 5.8% | 7,809 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why UA1509 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA1509 on SFO → HNL. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies UA1509 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA1509 pushed back an average of 21 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 5 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into SFO just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 999 of 1,105 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA1509 | 15% | 36% | 13% |
| Network, same turn | 23% | 40% | 9% |
The schedule leaves a long gap on the ground, which gives a late aircraft room to catch up before this flight pushes back.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 90 minutes to 3 hours. How often UA1509’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often UA1509 left 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves SFO late, does that still matter by the time it reaches HNL?
UA1509 pushes back an average of 14.1 minutes late and reaches the gate at HNL an average of 3.1 minutes late. The 10.9 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. It spends 23.9 minutes on the taxiways at SFO, 2.1 minutes longer than a typical SFO departure in the same hour.
On arrival at HNL, UA1509 spends 5.8 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is 2.4 minutes shorter than a typical HNL arrival (8.3 min).
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached HNL. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 37,907 departures from SFO scheduled in the clock hour UA1509 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at HNL (186,355 flights), not just UA1509’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves SFO
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA1509 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 37,907 departures from SFO are scheduled in the 4 PM–5 PM hour over the period, against 435,779 across the whole day.
UA1509 is scheduled out of SFO at 4:55 PM, in the 4 PM–5 PM bank. Departures from SFO in that hour arrive on time 75.7% of the time against 78.7% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 3.0 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from SFO to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
By day of week
Does UA1509 run worse on particular days?
Monday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 6.8 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Days with fewer than 120 operations are not scored.
Other routes UA1509 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEA→SFO Seattle to San Francisco | January 7, 2025 – February 12, 2025 | 31 | — |
| GEG→DEN Spokane to Denver | May 2–22, 2024 | 21 | — |
| SBA→SFO Santa Barbara to San Francisco | February 15, 2024 – March 6, 2024 | 21 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA1509 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
30 min late
against a median of 7 min early
Percentiles over 1,106 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA638 | United Airlines | 89.4% | 11 min early | 708 |
| UA1175 | United Airlines | 85.7% | 7 min early | 1,127 |
| UA300 | United Airlines | 81.4% | 7 min early | 1,092 |
| UA1509 this flight | United Airlines | 80.8% | 7 min early | 1,106 |
| UA2380 | United Airlines | 75.9% | 4 min early | 826 |
| HA11 | Hawaiian Airlines | 73.5% | 2 min late | 848 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA1509 is placed in the same ordering rather than left out of it; the rows around it are the most punctual departures on the route, not all of them, so this is a comparison and not a rank. Schedules change; confirm the departure still operates before booking around this.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,106 records of UA1509 operating SFO → HNL, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
Analysis last recomputed