Flight profile · United Airlines
UA2285
Sacramento (SMF) to Denver (DEN) · scheduled 8:45 AM – 12:09 PM
How UA2285 performs
1,056 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
UA2285 arrived on time 94.2% of the time, against 83.6% for all SMF → DEN flights, so this departure is 10.6 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 5.3 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 1,056 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If UA2285 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 UA2285 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight stays close to typical even on its worst days, a smaller gap than 98% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.
A typical arrival is 14 min early, and the worst tenth are only 17 minutes worse than that.
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 UA2285 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2285 | 94.2% | 0.76% | -14 min | 2.5% | 1,056 |
| United Airlines on SMF → DEN | 88.9% | 0.77% | -11 min | 4.3% | 5,724 |
| All SMF → DEN flights | 83.6% | 0.62% | -7 min | 5.2% | 12,215 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why UA2285 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
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA2285 on SMF → DEN. 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 UA2285 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
UA2285 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 11.3 hours on the ground at SMF, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA2285 pushed back an average of 1 minute early; when it came in on time or early, an average of 2 minutes early.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into SMF just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 717 of 1,049 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA2285 | 31% | 7% | 5% |
| Network, same turn | 29% | 12% | 9% |
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 UA2285’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often UA2285 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 SMF late, does that still matter by the time it reaches DEN?
UA2285 pushes back an average of 0.9 minutes early and reaches the gate at DEN an average of 9.0 minutes early. The 8.1 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 13.1 minutes on the taxiways at SMF is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at DEN, UA2285 spends 8.3 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 1.5 minutes shorter than a typical DEN arrival (9.8 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 DEN. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 10,189 departures from SMF scheduled in the clock hour UA2285 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at DEN (963,027 flights), not just UA2285’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves SMF
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA2285 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 10,189 departures from SMF are scheduled in the 8 AM–9 AM hour over the period, against 172,472 across the whole day.
UA2285 is scheduled out of SMF at 8:45 AM, in the 8 AM–9 AM bank. Departures from SMF in that hour arrive on time 89.6% of the time against 83.2% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 6.4 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from SMF 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 UA2285 run worse on particular days?
Thursday is historically the most reliable day and Tuesday the least, a gap of 4.0 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 UA2285 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.
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA2285 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.
3 min late
against a median of 14 min early
Percentiles over 1,056 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 1,056 records of UA2285 operating SMF → DEN, 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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