Flight number record
UA 1420
United Airlines · Houston to Portland
- Route
- IAH → PDX
- Departs
- 20:00
- Flights
- 340
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1420, check with United Airlines.
UA 1420 lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That rests on 340 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
77.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 337 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.59%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
7.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 340 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Schedule
When UA 1420 flies
UA 1420 flies IAH to PDX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 20:00, used on 73 of 340 flights, with 20:17 (68 flights) next.
- Departs 20:0073 flights21.5%
- Departs 20:1768 flights20.0%
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 20:00 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and UA 1420 runs 7 points better at 77.2%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
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Against the route
UA 1420 next to IAH to PDX
Every carrier on IAH to PDX combined arrived on time 80.9% of the time across 1,209 flights, so UA 1420 is 4 points behind it. United flew 856 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 82.3% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight trails by 2 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1420thin sample | 340 | 77.2% | 54 min | 0.59% | B+ |
| All United Airlines on IAH–PDX | 856 | 82.3% | 62 min | 0.23% | B+ |
| All carriers on IAH–PDX | 1,209 | 80.9% | 62 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 1420 quarter by quarter
UA 1420 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 81.8% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 71.7%, a swing of 10 points on roughly 68 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 202530 flights76.7%
- Oct–Dec 202590 flights72.2%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights81.8%
- Apr–Jun 202684 flights80.7%
- Jul–Sep 202646 flights71.7%
Scale runs 65% to 85%.
By weekday, UA 1420 ranged from 72.5% on Thursday to 80.9% on Saturday. With about 49 flights behind each day, a spread of 8 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 1420 runs when it is late
UA 1420 often beats the schedule: 111 of 337 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 77 late arrivals split 27 under half an hour, 26 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 24 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early111 flights32.9%
- Within 15 min149 flights44.2%
- 15–29 min late27 flights8.0%
- 30–59 min late26 flights7.7%
- 1–2 hours late19 flights5.6%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 337 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
26 of 94 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 28% of them. 9 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 1420
The latest arrival of the period was on 25 October 2025, 4 hours 46 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. The five worst days are spread across October, May, March, November and February, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 25 October 2025 | 4 hours 46 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 19 May 2026 | 3 hours 26 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 15 March 2026 | 2 hours 50 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 24 November 2025 | 2 hours 47 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 February 2026 | 2 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why UA 1420 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 4,181 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 12%Extreme weather
- 9%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 12% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the quarterly figures above are the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 4,181 delay minutes reported on UA 1420.
Cancellations are rare at 0.59%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
7.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,825 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The same number turns up on three other city pairs in the data, including IND to IAH (175), MAF to IAH (36) and IAD to IAH (1), but none flew often enough under UA 1420 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to IAH to PDX only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 340 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 1420
For a booking, read UA 1420 as 77.2% on time with 0.59% cancelled over 340 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to PDX, every carrier and departure
- PDX to IAH, the return direction
- United Airlines 740 on the same route86.8%
- Alaska Airlines 1421 on the same route77.5%
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Portland International (PDX) 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
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.