Flight number record
UA 1886
United Airlines · Houston to Newark
- Route
- IAH → EWR
- Departs
- 07:20
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1886, check with United Airlines.
UA 1886 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 11 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 1886's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 107 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.37%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
4.4%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Schedule
When UA 1886 flies
UA 1886 flies IAH to EWR without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:20, used on 142 of 365 flights, with 08:00 (117 flights) and 07:34 (37 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 07:20142 flights38.9%
- Departs 08:00117 flights32.1%
- Departs 07:3437 flights10.1%
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 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 1886 runs level with that at 88.3%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
Against the route
UA 1886 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 1886 is 14 points ahead of 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 beats by 9 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1886 | 365 | 88.3% | 74 min | 1.37% | A |
| 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 1886 quarter by quarter
UA 1886 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 94.5% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 83.7%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 91 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 202592 flights94.5%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights83.7%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights83.7%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights91.2%
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 1886 did best on Tuesday at 94.2% on time and worst on Saturday at 76.9%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 17 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why UA 1886 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 43% of the 3,121 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.
- 43%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,352 of the 3,121 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,121 delay minutes reported on UA 1886.
Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.4% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 1,400 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.
Every one of the 365 flights under UA 1886 in the data flew IAH to EWR. 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. 365 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 1886
For a booking, UA 1886 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 88.3% on time and 1.37% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
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 1444 on the same route75.4%
- United Airlines 1397 on the same route71.0%
- 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
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.