Flight number record
UA 1501
United Airlines · Houston to Tampa
- Route
- IAH → TPA
- Departs
- 12:50
- Flights
- 328
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1501, check with United Airlines.
UA 1501 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 328 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
74.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 326 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.61%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.9%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 328 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When UA 1501 flies
UA 1501 flies IAH to TPA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 12:50, used on 112 of 328 flights, with 12:40 (74 flights) and 12:35 (53 flights) next.
- Departs 12:50112 flights34.1%
- Departs 12:4074 flights22.6%
- Departs 12:3553 flights16.2%
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 12:50 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and UA 1501 runs 4 points worse at 74.2%. 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 1501 next to IAH to TPA
Every carrier on IAH to TPA combined arrived on time 82.7% of the time across 1,522 flights, so UA 1501 is 9 points behind it. United flew 1,336 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 83.5% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight trails by 5 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1501thin sample | 328 | 74.2% | 57 min | 0.61% | C+ |
| All United Airlines on IAH–TPA | 1,336 | 83.5% | 60 min | 0.30% | B+ |
| All carriers on IAH–TPA | 1,522 | 82.7% | 68 min | 0.46% | B+ |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 1501 quarter by quarter
UA 1501 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 86.7% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 67.0%, a swing of 20 points on roughly 66 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 flights86.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights78.9%
- Jan–Mar 202653 flights79.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights67.0%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights67.7%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
By weekday, UA 1501 did best on Tuesday at 84.4% on time and worst on Sunday at 63.8%. Each day rests on about 47 flights, so a gap of 21 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 1501 runs when it is late
UA 1501 often beats the schedule: 93 of 326 completed flights, 29%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 84 late arrivals split 31 under half an hour, 24 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 29 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early93 flights28.5%
- Within 15 min149 flights45.7%
- 15–29 min late31 flights9.5%
- 30–59 min late24 flights7.4%
- 1–2 hours late22 flights6.7%
- 2+ hours late7 flights2.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 326 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
17 of 86 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. 15 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 1501
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 March 2026, 4 hours 13 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 March 2026 | 4 hours 13 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 30 July 2026 | 3 hours 50 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 May 2026 | 3 hours 23 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 17 July 2026 | 2 hours 43 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 23 June 2026 | 2 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why UA 1501 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 4,786 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,786 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 4,786 delay minutes reported on UA 1501.
Cancellations are rare at 0.61%, 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
8.9% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 787 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 four other city pairs in the data, including TPA to EWR (102), FLL to EWR (37) and SAN to IAH (35), but none flew often enough under UA 1501 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to IAH to TPA only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 328 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 1501
For a booking, UA 1501 is one of the weaker ways to fly IAH to TPA: 9 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to TPA, every carrier and departure
- TPA to IAH, the return direction
- United Airlines 1312 on the same route77.3%
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) 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.