Flight number record

UA 1979

United Airlines · Newark to Tampa

Route: EWR → TPA
Departs: 07:00
Flights: 320
Period: September 2025 to August 2026

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1979, check with United Airlines.

UA 1979 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 16 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 50 minutes. That rests on 320 flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, UA 1979's record is 16 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 156 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

92.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 311 completed flights

Avg delay

52 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.50%

National rate is 1.89%

1 hour+ late

1.0%

National rate is 8.3%

These figures cover 320 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 15 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 1979 flies

UA 1979 flies EWR to TPA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:00, used on 152 of 320 flights, with 07:20 (53 flights) and 07:05 (34 flights) next.

Departs 07:00152 flights47.5%
Departs 07:2053 flights16.6%
Departs 07:0534 flights10.6%

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 07:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and UA 1979 runs 4 points better at 92.9%. 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 1979 next to EWR to TPA

Every carrier on EWR to TPA combined arrived on time 80.9% of the time across 2,503 flights, so UA 1979 is 12 points ahead of it. United flew 2,333 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 81.0% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight beats by 14 points.

UA 1979 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
UA 1979thin sample	320	92.9%	52 min	2.50%	A
All United Airlines on EWR–TPA	2,333	81.0%	71 min	2.19%	B
All carriers on EWR–TPA	2,503	80.9%	72 min	2.16%	B
United Airlines, whole network	830,825	78.8%	73 min	1.02%	B

Across the year

UA 1979 quarter by quarter

UA 1979 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2026 at 98.2% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 82.4%, a swing of 16 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 202526 flights—
Oct–Dec 202592 flights93.2%
Jan–Mar 202653 flights82.4%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights95.6%
Jul–Sep 202658 flights98.2%

Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, UA 1979 ranged from 91.1% on Thursday to 100.0% on Tuesday. With about 46 flights behind each day, a spread of 9 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.

Arrival by arrival

How late UA 1979 runs when it is late

UA 1979 often beats the schedule: 160 of 311 completed flights, 51%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 11 of the 22 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 3 reached an hour or more.

15+ min early160 flights51.4%
Within 15 min129 flights41.5%
15–29 min late11 flights3.5%
30–59 min late8 flights2.6%
1–2 hours late0 flights0.0%
2+ hours late3 flights1.0%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 311 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

A late pushback is often recovered here: of 21 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 8 still arrived on time. 9 flights left on time and still arrived late.

The worst days

Worst days for UA 1979

The latest arrival of the period was on 14 December 2025, 3 hours 51 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. The five worst days are spread across December, November, August and September, with no single month standing out.

The latest arrivals of UA 1979 in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
14 December 2025	3 hours 51 minutes	Extreme weather
9 November 2025	3 hours 45 minutes	Carrier
31 August 2026	2 hours 18 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
5 September 2025	53 minutes	Carrier
6 December 2025	44 minutes	National Airspace System

Delay causes

Why UA 1979 runs late

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 1,152 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
37%
Carrier
35%
Late-arriving aircraft
15%
Extreme weather
13%

Extreme weather accounts for 13% 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 2.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 1,152 delay minutes reported on UA 1979.

Cancellations run at 2.50%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 1.0% 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 997 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 IAH (55), TPA to LAX (21) and EWR to DEN (2), but none flew often enough under UA 1979 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to EWR to TPA only.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 320 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 1979

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on UA 1979: 2.50% of its 320 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs roughly 50 minutes, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.

Where to go next

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 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures