Route profile
SFO→IAD
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from San Francisco to Washington, 2,419 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 74% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 8,486 flights. How this is calculated · What counts as on time
SFO → IAD arrives on time 81.9% of the time; the return trip, IAD → SFO, arrives on time 78.5% of the time, a 3.4-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
SFO → IAD spends 31.4 minutes on the ground on a 2,419-mile trip: 23.9 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at SFO and 7.6 minutes from touchdown to gate at IAD.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
Every day of the week performs about the same on this route, steadier than 99% of 4,467 comparable routes.
83.3% on time on the best day (Tuesday) against 80.7% on the worst (Sunday).
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 4,467 in the comparison.
What sets this route apart
Where SFO to IAD differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
SFO to IAD is at its best against routes of similar length for flights scheduled at 7 AM: 94.3% arrive on time, 8.9 points ahead of the 85.4% those routes manage at that hour. Against all other routes the gap is 6.5 points.
SFO to IAD struggles most at 8 AM: 78.1% of its flights scheduled then arrive on time, 5.5 points behind the 83.6% on routes of similar length at the same hour. Against all other routes the gap is 7.8 points.
SFO to IAD holds up on Fridays better than routes of similar length do: 82.7% on time to their 77.3%, a 5.4 points lead. Against all other routes the gap is 6.5 points.
February is kinder to SFO to IAD than to routes of similar length: 86.2% on time against 80.5%, 5.7 points better. Against all other routes the gap is 4.8 points.
SFO to IAD against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 7 AM departures | 94.3% | routes of similar length | 85.4% | +8.9 pts | 352 here, 110,677 there |
| Hour: 8 AM departures | 78.1% | routes of similar length | 83.6% | −5.5 pts | 1,180 here, 109,312 there |
| Weekday: Friday | 82.7% | routes of similar length | 77.3% | +5.4 pts | 1,234 here, 159,816 there |
| Month: February | 86.2% | routes of similar length | 80.5% | +5.7 pts | 513 here, 71,785 there |
Each comparison pools the flights of other routes, with this route’s own left out. Similar length means within 15% of this route’s 2,419 miles, with at least 5 such routes. A bucket is set against the most comparable group that has enough flights: similar length, then the same origin (at least 3 routes), then all other routes. Hours, weekdays and months appear only where both sides have 120 completed flights, and airlines where both have 600. The gap must be at least 2 points and 2 standard errors, and only the largest gap each way is kept per measure. These are differences in the flights counted, not causes.
Why SFO → IAD flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
SFO → IAD cancelled 77 of 8,486 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 110. The reason filed most often was the airline, 76.6% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 144 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 77 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
59 cancellations, 76.6% of the total.
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
17 cancellations, 22.1% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
1 cancellation, 1.3% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. With only one or two carriers on the route, the split mostly reflects how they file. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
77 coded cancellations were recorded on SFO → IAD; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
33 min late
against a median of 7 min early
Percentiles over 8,486 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at IAD after arriving from SFO.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 35% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 17% | High risk |
| 60 min | 11% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 5.7% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 3.4% | Low risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 0.91% of the time and diverts 0.20% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 8,392 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 33 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 8,486 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
SFO → IAD flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 84.6% of the time, against 78.5% for 9 AM–12 PM departures, a gap of 6.1 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 97.1% on time from 342 flights
- 7 AM: 94.3% on time from 355 flights
- 8 AM: 78.1% on time from 1,198 flights
- 9 AM: too few flights to score
- 10 AM: 79.5% on time from 432 flights
- 11 AM: 78.4% on time from 835 flights
- 12 PM: 78.7% on time from 271 flights
- 1 PM: 79.1% on time from 1,059 flights
- 2 PM to 3 PM: too few flights to score
- 4 PM: 82.4% on time from 987 flights
- 5 PM to 8 PM: too few flights to score
- 9 PM: 85.1% on time from 1,168 flights
- 10 PM: 77.9% on time from 713 flights
- 11 PM: 82.5% on time from 858 flights
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why SFO → IAD runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
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
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for SFO → IAD. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on SFO → IAD, at 42.2%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, though departure time makes little difference here: the best and worst windows are 6 points apart.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 7,517 | 82.4% | 0.89% | -7 min | 5.6% |
| Alaska Airlines | 969 | 78.2% | 1.03% | -7 min | 7.0% |
United Airlines flew 88.6% of the 8,486 flights listed.
United Airlines arrived on time 4.2 percentage points more often than Alaska Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA1849 United Airlines | 8:25 AM | 821 | 82.8% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 2.6 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 82.9%
- Feb: 86.2%
- Mar: 81.7%
- Apr: 85.5%
- May: 79.2%
- Jun: 74.8%
- Jul: 74.8%
- Aug: 81.4%
- Sep: 83.7%
- Oct: 88.7%
- Nov: 86.9%
- Dec: 81.7%
July is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 13.9 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 76.3% from 249 flights
- August 2023: 76.7% from 248 flights
- September 2023: 80.2% from 229 flights
- October 2023: 87.3% from 214 flights
- November 2023: 85.4% from 179 flights
- December 2023: 77.2% from 185 flights
- January 2024: 65.1% from 155 flights
- February 2024: 78.1% from 152 flights
- March 2024: 75.9% from 213 flights
- April 2024: 80.7% from 228 flights
- May 2024: 81.3% from 242 flights
- June 2024: 83.0% from 241 flights
- July 2024: 81.8% from 249 flights
- August 2024: 88.0% from 248 flights
- September 2024: 89.3% from 244 flights
- October 2024: 89.5% from 267 flights
- November 2024: 88.7% from 258 flights
- December 2024: 80.3% from 260 flights
- January 2025: 88.3% from 191 flights
- February 2025: 86.7% from 174 flights
- March 2025: 82.5% from 229 flights
- April 2025: 90.6% from 286 flights
- May 2025: 73.4% from 273 flights
- June 2025: 69.5% from 275 flights
- July 2025: 65.2% from 267 flights
- August 2025: 79.7% from 254 flights
- September 2025: 81.1% from 206 flights
- October 2025: 89.0% from 247 flights
- November 2025: 86.0% from 229 flights
- December 2025: 86.5% from 245 flights
- January 2026: 89.1% from 209 flights
- February 2026: 92.1% from 189 flights
- March 2026: 86.7% from 209 flights
- April 2026: 83.9% from 231 flights
- May 2026: 83.2% from 268 flights
- June 2026: 72.6% from 234 flights
- July 2026: 76.9% from 209 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 83.8% against 82.3% in the 12 months before — improving by 1.5 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 8,486 SFO → IAD flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed