Flight number record

UA 1997

United Airlines · Washington to Newark

Route: IAD → EWR
Departs: 22:30
Flights: 271
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1997, check with United Airlines.

UA 1997 sits in the middle of the pack with a B−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 271 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.

On time

75.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 261 completed flights

Avg delay

74 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.69%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

9.2%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 271 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Schedule

When UA 1997 flies

UA 1997 flies IAD to EWR without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 22:30, used on 113 of 271 flights, with 22:40 (37 flights) and 22:15 (36 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 22:30113 flights41.7%
Departs 22:4037 flights13.7%
Departs 22:1536 flights13.3%

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 22:30 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and UA 1997 runs 5 points better at 75.9%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.

Against the route

UA 1997 next to IAD to EWR

Every carrier on IAD to EWR combined arrived on time 75.3% of the time across 1,501 flights, so UA 1997 is about level with it. United flew 1,480 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 75.2% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight trails by 3 points.

UA 1997 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
UA 1997thin sample	271	75.9%	74 min	3.69%	B−
All United Airlines on IAD–EWR	1,480	75.2%	89 min	2.23%	B
All carriers on IAD–EWR	1,501	75.3%	89 min	2.27%	B
United Airlines, whole network	821,041	79.0%	72 min	1.01%	B

Across the year

UA 1997 quarter by quarter

UA 1997 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 90.2% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 62.7%, a swing of 28 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 202586 flights62.7%
Oct–Dec 202536 flights68.6%
Jan–Mar 202664 flights78.7%
Apr–Jun 202685 flights90.2%

Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, UA 1997 did best on Tuesday at 85.4% on time and worst on Thursday at 66.7%. Each day rests on about 39 flights, so a gap of 19 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why UA 1997 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 4,645 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
33%
Late-arriving aircraft
32%
Carrier
30%
Extreme weather
5%

33% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,514 minutes out of 4,645, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 4,645 delay minutes reported on UA 1997.

Cancellations run at 3.69%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 25 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

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

The same number turns up on three other city pairs in the data, including MCO to IAD (210), SFO to IAD (31) and LAX to SFO (31), but none flew often enough under UA 1997 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to IAD to EWR only.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 271 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 1997

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on UA 1997: 3.69% of its 271 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs a little over an hour, 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures