Flight number record
UA 1549
United Airlines · Houston to Washington
- Route
- IAH → IAD
- Departs
- 07:20
- Flights
- 364
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1549, check with United Airlines.
UA 1549 earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 15 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 1549's record is 15 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 147 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
92.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 361 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.82%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
2.5%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 364 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 1549 flies
UA 1549 flies IAH to IAD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:20, used on 214 of 364 flights, with 07:25 (145 flights) next.
- Departs 07:20214 flights58.8%
- Departs 07:25145 flights39.8%
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 07:20 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and UA 1549 runs 3 points better at 92.0%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
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Against the route
UA 1549 next to IAH to IAD
Every carrier on IAH to IAD combined arrived on time 82.4% of the time across 1,860 flights, so UA 1549 is 10 points ahead of it. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight beats by 13 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1549thin sample | 364 | 92.0% | 58 min | 0.82% | A+ |
| All United Airlines on IAH–IAD | 1,860 | 82.4% | 62 min | 0.43% | B+ |
| All carriers on IAH–IAD | 1,860 | 82.4% | 62 min | 0.43% | B+ |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 1549 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter UA 1549 held fairly steady: 96.7% in Jul–Sep 2025, 91.3% in Oct–Dec 2025, 89.8% in Jan–Mar 2026, 94.4% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 90.2% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 7 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights96.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights91.3%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights89.8%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights94.4%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights90.2%
Scale runs 80% to 100%.
By weekday, UA 1549 ranged from 90.2% on Thursday to 96.1% on Friday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 6 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 1549 runs when it is late
UA 1549 often beats the schedule: 115 of 361 completed flights, 32%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 17 of the 29 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 9 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early115 flights31.9%
- Within 15 min217 flights60.1%
- 15–29 min late17 flights4.7%
- 30–59 min late3 flights0.8%
- 1–2 hours late5 flights1.4%
- 2+ hours late4 flights1.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 361 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Only 19 of 361 completed flights left 15 minutes late or more, too few to say how often the time is made up.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 1549
The latest arrival of the period was on 29 July 2026, 4 hours 40 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in July 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 29 July 2026 | 4 hours 40 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 July 2026 | 3 hours 3 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 16 March 2026 | 2 hours 49 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 May 2026 | 2 hours 18 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 13 July 2026 | 1 hour 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why UA 1549 runs late
Carrier accounts for 48% of the 1,682 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Carrier
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 1,682 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 35 to one. The split is drawn from 1,682 delay minutes reported on UA 1549.
Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 1,190 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.
Every one of the 364 flights under UA 1549 in the data flew IAH to IAD. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 364 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 1549
For a booking, UA 1549 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 92.0% on time and 0.82% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to IAD, every carrier and departure
- IAD to IAH, the return direction
- United Airlines 2366 on the same route82.0%
- United Airlines 1788 on the same route82.8%
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) 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.