Flight number record

UA 1388

United Airlines · Houston to Dallas-Fort Worth

Route: IAH → DFW
Departs: 14:35
Flights: 336
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1388, check with United Airlines.

UA 1388 sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 336 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

On time

75.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 328 completed flights

Avg delay

101 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.08%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

12.5%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 336 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Schedule

When UA 1388 flies

UA 1388 flies IAH to DFW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 14:35, used on 140 of 336 flights, with 14:45 (61 flights) and 14:40 (38 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 14:35140 flights41.7%
Departs 14:4561 flights18.2%
Departs 14:4038 flights11.3%

Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.

A 14:35 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 72.4%, and UA 1388 runs 4 points better at 75.9%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

UA 1388 next to IAH to DFW

Every carrier on IAH to DFW combined arrived on time 75.0% of the time across 5,779 flights, so UA 1388 is about level with it. United flew 2,415 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 75.7% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight trails by 3 points.

UA 1388 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
UA 1388thin sample	336	75.9%	101 min	2.08%	B
All United Airlines on IAH–DFW	2,415	75.7%	74 min	1.70%	B
All carriers on IAH–DFW	5,779	75.0%	99 min	2.80%	B
United Airlines, whole network	821,041	79.0%	72 min	1.01%	B

Across the year

UA 1388 quarter by quarter

UA 1388 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 88.1% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 66.7%, a swing of 21 points on roughly 84 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Jul–Sep 202585 flights67.9%
Oct–Dec 202584 flights80.5%
Jan–Mar 202688 flights88.1%
Apr–Jun 202679 flights66.7%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, UA 1388 did best on Tuesday at 83.0% on time and worst on Friday at 62.5%. Each day rests on about 48 flights, so a gap of 21 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why UA 1388 runs late

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 7,989 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
41%
Late-arriving aircraft
39%
Carrier
16%
Extreme weather
5%

39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 7,989 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 7,989 delay minutes reported on UA 1388.

Cancellations sit at 2.08% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

The same number turns up on eight other city pairs in the data, including RSW to IAH (51), SLC to IAH (17) and EGE to ORD (6), but none flew often enough under UA 1388 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to IAH to DFW only.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 336 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking UA 1388

For a booking, UA 1388 is a flight to put a long connection behind. 12.5% of its completed flights arrived an hour or more late, which a short layover will not absorb. If the onward flight is on a separate ticket, the risk sits with you.

Where to go next

A flight number here means United Airlines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures