Flight profile · United Airlines
UA2153
Cleveland (CLE) to San Francisco (SFO) · scheduled 7:00 AM – 9:32 AM
How UA2153 performs
792 operations, February 2024 – July 2026.
UA2153 arrived on time 91.4% of the time, against 87.1% for all CLE → SFO flights, so this departure is 4.3 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 3.9 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 792 operations, February 2024 – July 2026 · If UA2153 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where UA2153 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2153 | 91.4% | 0.00% | -11 min | 1.3% | 792 |
| United Airlines on CLE → SFO | 87.5% | 0.75% | -11 min | 3.6% | 1,730 |
| All CLE → SFO flights | 87.1% | 0.91% | -11 min | 3.8% | 1,756 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · February 2024 – July 2026
Why UA2153 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
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
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA2153 on CLE → SFO. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering February 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies UA2153 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
UA2153 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 7.6 hours on the ground at CLE, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
The aircraft flying UA2153 came in 15 or more minutes late on 17% of the departures where its previous flight is known. There are not enough departures in both groups to say how the flight left after a late one and after an on-time one.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into CLE just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 557 of 792 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 |
|---|---|
| UA2153 | 17% |
| Network, same turn | 29% |
A night on the ground absorbs most of a late arrival, so a late inbound matters far less on a turn this long than on a same-day one.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 6 hours or more, usually overnight. How often UA2153’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s. There are not enough departures in both groups to compare how it left.
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 February 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves CLE late, does that still matter by the time it reaches SFO?
UA2153 pushes back an average of 0.9 minutes early and reaches the gate at SFO an average of 9.0 minutes early. The 8.0 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. Its 16.1 minutes on the taxiways at CLE is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at SFO, UA2153 spends 9.2 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 1.3 minutes longer 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 12,153 departures from CLE scheduled in the clock hour UA2153 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 UA2153’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · February 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves CLE
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA2153 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 12,153 departures from CLE are scheduled in the 7 AM–8 AM hour over the period, against 126,883 across the whole day.
UA2153 is scheduled out of CLE at 7:00 AM, in the 7 AM–8 AM bank. Departures from CLE in that hour arrive on time 87.7% of the time against 80.9% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 6.8 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from CLE 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 · February 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes UA2153 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→RDM San Francisco to Redmond | May 1, 2025 – July 31, 2026 | 419 | 91.4% |
| FLL→SFO Fort Lauderdale to San Francisco | June 26, 2025 – August 18, 2025 | 54 | — |
| CMH→SFO Columbus to San Francisco | May 22, 2025 – June 25, 2025 | 35 | — |
| SFO→LAX San Francisco to Los Angeles | December 3, 2024 – April 30, 2025 | 83 | — |
| SFO→PHX San Francisco to Phoenix | December 19, 2024 – January 6, 2025 | 19 | — |
| SFO→SAN San Francisco to San Diego | October 27, 2024 – December 2, 2024 | 37 | — |
| DEN→SNA Denver to Santa Ana | July 1, 2023 – February 14, 2024 | 225 | 87.4% |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA2153 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.
12 min late
against a median of 11 min early
Percentiles over 792 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering February 2024 – July 2026
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 792 records of UA2153 operating CLE → 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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