Flight number record
UA 2856
United Airlines · Newark to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Route
- EWR → DFW
- Departs
- 18:50
- Flights
- 341
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 2856, check with United Airlines.
UA 2856 sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 341 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so UA 2856 runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 53 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 328 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.52%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
14.6%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 341 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When UA 2856 flies
UA 2856 flies EWR to DFW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 18:50, used on 58 of 341 flights, with 18:29 (37 flights) next.
- Departs 18:5058 flights17.0%
- Departs 18:2937 flights10.9%
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 18:50 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and UA 2856 runs 4 points better at 72.0%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
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Against the route
UA 2856 next to EWR to DFW
Every carrier on EWR to DFW combined arrived on time 78.6% of the time across 3,631 flights, so UA 2856 is 7 points behind it. United flew 1,805 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.5% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight trails by 7 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 2856thin sample | 341 | 72.0% | 85 min | 3.52% | C− |
| All United Airlines on EWR–DFW | 1,805 | 79.5% | 74 min | 2.66% | B |
| All carriers on EWR–DFW | 3,631 | 78.6% | 93 min | 3.36% | B− |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 2856 quarter by quarter
UA 2856 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 75.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 61.1%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 85 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 202529 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights75.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights68.7%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights73.6%
- Jul–Sep 202640 flights61.1%
Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 2856 ranged from 65.2% on Friday to 76.6% on Monday. With about 49 flights behind each day, a spread of 11 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 2856 runs when it is late
UA 2856 often beats the schedule: 96 of 328 completed flights, 29%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When UA 2856 is late it tends to be very late: 48 of its 92 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 23 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early96 flights29.3%
- Within 15 min140 flights42.7%
- 15–29 min late26 flights7.9%
- 30–59 min late18 flights5.5%
- 1–2 hours late25 flights7.6%
- 2+ hours late23 flights7.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 328 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
24 of 95 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 25% of them. In the other direction, 21 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DFW.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 2856
The latest arrival of the period was on 30 October 2025, 6 hours 58 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 30 October 2025 | 6 hours 58 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 4 September 2025 | 6 hours 3 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 2 August 2026 | 5 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 July 2026 | 4 hours 11 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 November 2025 | 3 hours 59 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why UA 2856 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 7,830 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 7,830 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 7,830 delay minutes reported on UA 2856.
Cancellations run at 3.52%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
14.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,372 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 three other city pairs in the data, including RDU to EWR (21), EWR to DEN (21) and IAH to EWR (1), but none flew often enough under UA 2856 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to EWR to DFW only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 341 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 2856
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on UA 2856: 3.52% of its 341 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs an hour and a half, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to DFW, every carrier and departure
- DFW to EWR, the return direction
- American Airlines 2728 on the same route93.2%
- United Airlines 454 on the same route84.7%
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) 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.