Flight profile · United Airlines
UA2117
San Diego (SAN) to San Francisco (SFO) · scheduled 4:10 PM – 5:47 PM
How UA2117 performs
1,030 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
UA2117 arrived on time 78.9% of the time, against 66.7% for all SAN → SFO flights, so this departure is 12.2 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 5.1 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 1,030 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If UA2117 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
What stands out
How UA2117 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight runs unusually far ahead of the SAN → SFO route as a whole, better than 94% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.
78.9% on time for this specific departure, against 66.7% for every SAN → SFO flight.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · The one thing about this specific departure that ranks most extreme against every other published flight number, out of everything FlyerIntel checks — shown only when something clears a real statistical bar, not for every flight.
Where UA2117 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2117 | 78.9% | 0.97% | -9 min | 7.8% | 1,030 |
| United Airlines on SAN → SFO | 73.8% | 1.05% | -4 min | 8.3% | 7,351 |
| All SAN → SFO flights | 66.7% | 1.14% | 1 min | 11.2% | 20,040 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why UA2117 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA2117 on SAN → SFO. 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 UA2117 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA2117 pushed back an average of 56 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 1 minute late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into SAN just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 1,013 of 1,020 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA2117 | 16% | 78% | 10% |
| Network, same turn | 17% | 68% | 9% |
The schedule leaves a normal turn: enough time to clean and board if the aircraft is on time, little to spare if it is not.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 60 to 89 minutes. How often UA2117’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often UA2117 left 15 or more minutes late is higher 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 SAN late, does that still matter by the time it reaches SFO?
UA2117 pushes back an average of 10.5 minutes late and reaches the gate at SFO an average of 4.3 minutes late. The 6.2 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 21.6 minutes on the taxiways at SAN, 3.0 minutes longer than a typical SAN departure in the same hour.
On arrival at SFO, UA2117 spends 5.3 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 2.6 minutes shorter than a typical SFO arrival (7.9 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 SFO. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 15,125 departures from SAN scheduled in the clock hour UA2117 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at SFO (436,060 flights), not just UA2117’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves SAN
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA2117 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 15,125 departures from SAN are scheduled in the 4 PM–5 PM hour over the period, against 297,668 across the whole day.
UA2117 is scheduled out of SAN at 4:10 PM, in the 4 PM–5 PM bank. Departures from SAN in that hour arrive on time 72.2% of the time against 77.9% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 5.7 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from SAN 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 UA2117 run worse on particular days?
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Thursday the least, a gap of 9.8 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 UA2117 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SFO→PIT San Francisco to Pittsburgh | May 21, 2026 – July 31, 2026 | 59 | — |
| SFO→IAD San Francisco to Washington | February 15, 2024 – April 29, 2026 | 186 | 93.0% |
| SFO→FLL San Francisco to Fort Lauderdale | March 5–28, 2026 | 24 | — |
| SFO→EUG San Francisco to Eugene | January 6, 2026 – March 4, 2026 | 52 | — |
| SFO→BWI San Francisco to Baltimore | December 18, 2025 – January 5, 2026 | 19 | — |
| SFO→ORD San Francisco to Chicago | February 13, 2025 – October 25, 2025 | 169 | 85.2% |
| PSP→SFO Palm Springs to San Francisco | April 10–28, 2025 | 6 | — |
| SFO→DEN San Francisco to Denver | November 28, 2023 – December 20, 2023 | 21 | — |
| SFO→RDU San Francisco to Raleigh–Durham | October 1–28, 2023 | 28 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA2117 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.
49 min late
against a median of 9 min early
Percentiles over 1,030 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,030 records of UA2117 operating SAN → SFO, 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
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