The sector is held by Iberia.
Airport pair · hand carry reference
MAD Madrid to SFO San Francisco
Adolfo Suarez Barajas, Spain, to San Francisco International, the United States. Computed from the scheduled network held on 2026-09-07.
- Nonstop
- 3 times a week
- Great circle
- 9,330 km
- Block, estimated
- 11h 44m
- Door to door
- 18h 29m
What MAD to SFO looks like
The MAD to SFO sector, the carriers on it and the flying time, before anything is promised to anybody.
Madrid MAD to San Francisco SFO is an ultra long sector of 9,330 km by great circle, flown nonstop 3 times a week.
At the cruise speed this site models for 9,330 km, 880 km an hour, and thirty minutes of taxi at the two ends, the flight blocks at about 11h 44m.
Madrid MAD is a major hub in the network held here, 252 scheduled destinations and 720.9 departures a day. San Francisco SFO has 189 destinations and 656.9 departures a day.
San Francisco is 9 hours behind of Madrid all year.
The pair sits between the Americas and Europe, a corridor where the site already publishes 36 written lanes that go into customs and ground detail this page does not.
Who flies the sector, and how often
Average daily frequencies on MAD to SFO from the scheduled route statistics, both directions, with the operating carriers named.
| Direction | Flights a day | Flights a week | Operated by |
|---|---|---|---|
| MAD to SFO | 0.43 | 3 | Iberia |
| SFO to MAD | 0.43 | 3 | Iberia |
One carrier holds the sector, Iberia, so a cancellation has no second nonstop behind it and the connections below stop being theoretical.
Between them the two directions put about 6 departures a week on MAD to SFO, which is the number that decides whether a seat can be found today or on Thursday.
The clock from collection to signature
The same ground timings the route calculator starts from, applied to the 11h 44m block time on MAD to SFO. Change any of them in the tool further down and the total moves with them.
| Stage | Allowed | Elapsed |
|---|---|---|
| Collection and the run to MAD | 90 min | 1h 30m |
| At MAD before departure | 180 min | 4h 30m |
| MAD to SFO in the air, estimated | 704 min | 16h 14m |
| Formalities at SFO | 90 min | 17h 44m |
| Delivery run in San Francisco | 45 min | 18h 29m |
| Door to door | 1,109 min | 18h 29m |
On the desk standard ground timings, ninety minutes to collect and reach the airport, three hours at the airport before departure, ninety minutes of arrival formalities and a forty five minute delivery run, the door to door figure for MAD to SFO is 18h 29m.
A courier who leaves Madrid at 09:00 local is on the ground in San Francisco at about 11:44 local and at the door by 13:59 the same day.
Working backwards from a six in the evening handover in San Francisco, the last useful departure from Madrid is around 13:01 local.
At 18h 29m the mission is past the sixteen hour duty day a single courier is planned against, so it is quoted with a rest at the far end or with a second courier, and never as a turnaround.
When the nonstop does not work
Every airport that joins the two ends, ranked by when they land, among the ones whose weaker leg is dependable enough to plan on. Connection time is allowed for the size of the hub. 43 of them join MAD to SFO.
| Connecting at | MAD to hub, flights a day | Hub to SFO, flights a day | Track, km | Estimated, gate to gate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Montreal YUL | 1.43 | 3.43 | 9,627 | 13h 51m |
| Toronto YYZ | 2.29 | 8.57 | 9,685 | 13h 55m |
| Dublin DUB | 5.29 | 1.14 | 9,635 | 13h 57m |
| Lisbon LIS | 21.86 | 0.57 | 9,634 | 13h 59m |
| Boston BOS | 4.29 | 17.29 | 9,814 | 14h 05m |
| Philadelphia PHL | 1.29 | 7.14 | 9,957 | 14h 15m |
43 airports connect the two ends on the scheduled network held here. The quickest of the dependable ones is Montreal YUL, where the weaker of the two legs still runs about once a day.
Through YUL the routing covers 9,627 km against the 9,330 km nonstop track and takes about 13h 51m in the air and on the ground at the hub, allowing 75 minutes to connect at an airport of that size.
That is only 2h 07m more than the nonstop, which is close enough that a connection is worth taking when the nonstop is full or badly timed.
Behind it, Toronto YYZ at 13h 55m and Dublin DUB at 13h 57m hold the same connection, so a booking has three hubs to try before it has to wait for the nonstop.
If nothing suitable leaves San Francisco, Oakland OAK is 18 km away by great circle and carries 89 scheduled destinations of its own, which is usually a shorter road transfer than a lost day.
Restricted hours at either end
Widely documented operating restrictions, checked 2026-09-07. Exemptions and seasonal variations exist, so confirm with the carrier before relying on any of them.
Madrid MAD, night operations: Operates around the clock. Night departures to the Americas are routine.
Industry within reach of the two ends
Public manufacturing and research sites whose logistics run through MAD or SFO. Listed as industrial geography, not as customers of anyone.
- Airbus, Getafe and IllescasRear fuselage, tail sections and composite structures. The Spanish sites sit on the same takt as the French and German ones. Logistics through Madrid MAD.
- Genentech, South San FranciscoBiotechnology research and manufacturing. The original biotech cluster, and still the densest. Logistics through San Francisco SFO.
Plan Madrid to San Francisco yourself
The same tool the dispatchers use, open to anybody and free. It is loaded with this pair already. Change either end, add a stopover or a preferred airline, and it works out the connection, the transit and the door to door clock, with the real departures underneath. Put it on your own site if it is useful to you.
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Restrictions
Where this came from, and where to look next
- Carriers and frequencies: AeroDataBox scheduled route statistics, retrieved 2026-09-07. Average daily flights, not a timetable.
- Distances: great circle from published coordinates. They read short against a flown track, which is why the block time above applies a factor to them.
- Block and connection times: the same model the route calculator lower down this page runs, at the same rounding.
- Restrictions: the airport notes file, checked 2026-09-07.
- Industrial sites: public company information. Nothing here says or implies that any company named is a customer of any courier operator.
Who publishes this. OnBoard Courier is a placement desk in Dubai. An assignment is carried out by a vetted partner operator, with the desk as the single point of contact from the quote to the signature. This page exists because our own dispatchers need the answer for MAD to SFO in the twenty minutes before a promise is made, and a reference only one operator can read is not a reference. Free to read, quote and cite. Found an error? Tell us and we will correct it.
If you need something moved rather than looked up, the desk prices a hand carry in fifteen minutes.
- The MAD airport entry
- The SFO airport entry
- Hand carry into Spain
- Hand carry into the United States
- The written lane, Abu Dhabi to Madrid
- The written lane, Doha to Madrid
- The written lane, Dubai to Madrid
- The route calculator
More pairs through MAD and SFO: Barcelona to Madrid, Madrid to London, Paris to Madrid, Madrid to Amsterdam, Munich to Madrid, Madrid to Milan, Brussels to Madrid, Boston to Madrid.