Flight number record
UA 1397
United Airlines · Houston to Newark
- Route
- IAH → EWR
- Departs
- 13:38
- Flights
- 321
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. 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 77.3%, so UA 1397 runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 41 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 313 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.87%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
10.5%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 321 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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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 51 of 321 flights, with 13:46 (49 flights) and 13:35 (47 flights) next.
- Departs 13:3851 flights15.9%
- Departs 13:4649 flights15.3%
- Departs 13:3547 flights14.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
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 78.3%, and UA 1397 runs 5 points worse at 73.2%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
UA 1397 next to IAH to EWR
Every carrier on IAH to EWR combined arrived on time 75.4% of the time across 3,717 flights, so UA 1397 is 2 points behind it. United flew 3,510 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 75.2% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight trails by 6 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1397thin sample | 321 | 73.2% | 72 min | 1.87% | C |
| All United Airlines on IAH–EWR | 3,510 | 75.2% | 72 min | 1.57% | B |
| All carriers on IAH–EWR | 3,717 | 75.4% | 71 min | 1.86% | B |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | 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 20257 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202571 flights54.9%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights83.9%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights79.1%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights70.2%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 1397 did best on Tuesday at 82.5% on time and worst on Friday at 65.2%. Each day rests on about 46 flights, so a gap of 17 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 1397 runs when it is late
UA 1397 often beats the schedule: 85 of 313 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 84 late arrivals split 27 under half an hour, 24 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 33 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early85 flights27.2%
- Within 15 min144 flights46.0%
- 15–29 min late27 flights8.6%
- 30–59 min late24 flights7.7%
- 1–2 hours late21 flights6.7%
- 2+ hours late12 flights3.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 313 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
22 of 91 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 24% of them. 15 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 1397
The latest arrival of the period was on 9 November 2025, 6 hours 42 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. Three of the five worst days fell in November 2025.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 9 November 2025 | 6 hours 42 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 2 November 2025 | 6 hours 6 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 July 2026 | 6 hours 6 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 8 November 2025 | 5 hours 54 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 11 August 2026 | 4 hours 3 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why UA 1397 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 64% of the 6,027 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 64%National Airspace System
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
64% 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 3,849 minutes out of 6,027, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 6,027 delay minutes reported on UA 1397.
Cancellations sit at 1.87% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.62%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
10.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection 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.
The same number turns up on five other city pairs in the data, including LAX to IAH (150), SAT to IAH (31) and EWR to RDU (28), 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, read UA 1397 as 73.2% on time with 1.87% cancelled over 321 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to EWR, every carrier and departure
- EWR to IAH, the return direction
- United Airlines 1886 on the same route88.5%
- United Airlines 404 on the same route66.6%
- United Airlines 1444 on the same route76.3%
- United Airlines 1797 on the same route93.6%
- United Airlines 2608 on the same route59.1%
- United Airlines 700 on the same route63.5%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.