Flight number record
UA 1397
United Airlines · Houston to Newark
- Route
- IAH → EWR
- Departs
- 13:38
- Flights
- 321
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1397, check with United Airlines.
UA 1397 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 321 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so UA 1397 runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 66 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 314 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.25%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
12.7%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 321 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.7% 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 1397 flies
UA 1397 flies IAH to EWR without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 13:38, used on 52 of 321 flights, with 13:35 (47 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 13:3852 flights16.2%
- Departs 13:3547 flights14.6%
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 13:38 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.8%, and UA 1397 runs 8 points worse at 71.0%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
Against the route
UA 1397 next to IAH to EWR
Every carrier on IAH to EWR combined arrived on time 74.6% of the time across 3,800 flights, so UA 1397 is 4 points behind it. United flew 3,534 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 74.5% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight trails by 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1397thin sample | 321 | 71.0% | 77 min | 1.25% | C |
| All United Airlines on IAH–EWR | 3,534 | 74.5% | 72 min | 1.56% | C |
| All carriers on IAH–EWR | 3,800 | 74.6% | 71 min | 1.89% | C |
| United Airlines, whole network | 821,041 | 79.0% | 72 min | 1.01% | B |
Across the year
UA 1397 quarter by quarter
UA 1397 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 83.9% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 54.9%, a swing of 29 points on roughly 80 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 202569 flights60.0%
- Oct–Dec 202571 flights54.9%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights83.9%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights79.1%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 1397 did best on Tuesday at 83.3% on time and worst on Friday at 55.3%. Each day rests on about 46 flights, so a gap of 28 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why UA 1397 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 59% of the 7,015 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 59%National Airspace System
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
59% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 4,105 minutes out of 7,015, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 7,015 delay minutes reported on UA 1397.
Cancellations sit at 1.25% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.93%.
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. 12.7% 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 1,400 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The same number turns up on six other city pairs in the data, including LAX to IAH (109), ORD to IAH (37) and SAT to IAH (31), but none flew often enough under UA 1397 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to IAH to EWR only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 321 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 1397
For a booking, UA 1397 is a flight to put a long connection behind. 12.7% 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.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to EWR, every carrier and departure
- EWR to IAH, the return direction
- United Airlines 404 on the same route66.3%
- United Airlines 1886 on the same route88.3%
- United Airlines 1444 on the same route75.4%
- United Airlines 1797 on the same route92.5%
- United Airlines 2608 on the same route57.3%
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- United Airlines on-time record
- Every United Airlines flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.