Flight number record
UA 589
United Airlines · Houston to San Francisco
- Route
- IAH → SFO
- Departs
- 15:30
- Flights
- 348
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 589, check with United Airlines.
UA 589 lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 348 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 348 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 348 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When UA 589 flies
UA 589 flies IAH to SFO without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 15:30, used on 81 of 348 flights, with 14:50 (53 flights) and 14:24 (43 flights) next.
- Departs 15:3081 flights23.3%
- Departs 14:5053 flights15.2%
- Departs 14:2443 flights12.4%
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 15:30 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and UA 589 runs 8 points better at 79.6%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
UA 589 next to IAH to SFO
Every carrier on IAH to SFO combined arrived on time 78.2% of the time across 3,578 flights, so UA 589 is about level with it. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, close to this flight's figure.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 589thin sample | 348 | 79.6% | 70 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| All United Airlines on IAH–SFO | 3,578 | 78.2% | 62 min | 0.42% | B+ |
| All carriers on IAH–SFO | 3,578 | 78.2% | 62 min | 0.42% | B+ |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 589 quarter by quarter
UA 589 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 90.0% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 63.7%, a swing of 26 points on roughly 70 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 202530 flights86.7%
- Oct–Dec 202576 flights85.5%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights90.0%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights63.7%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights77.0%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
By weekday, UA 589 did best on Tuesday at 91.8% on time and worst on Friday at 68.0%. Each day rests on about 50 flights, so a gap of 24 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 589 runs when it is late
UA 589 often beats the schedule: 137 of 348 completed flights, 39%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 71 late arrivals split 19 under half an hour, 24 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 28 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early137 flights39.4%
- Within 15 min140 flights40.2%
- 15–29 min late19 flights5.5%
- 30–59 min late24 flights6.9%
- 1–2 hours late17 flights4.9%
- 2+ hours late11 flights3.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 348 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
16 of 79 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. 8 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 589
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 March 2026, 8 hours 35 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 16 March 2026 | 8 hours 35 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 15 February 2026 | 3 hours 26 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 13 September 2025 | 3 hours 15 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 1 October 2025 | 2 hours 45 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 8 June 2026 | 2 hours 44 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why UA 589 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 55% of the 4,934 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%National Airspace System
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
55% 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 2,734 minutes out of 4,934, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 4,934 delay minutes reported on UA 589.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,635 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
UA 589 is not only a IAH to SFO flight. It also flew SFO to SNA (323 flights, 88.2% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 348 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.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SFO to SNAthin sample | 323 | 88.2% | 55 min | 0.00% | A+ |
What to do with this
Booking UA 589
For a booking, read UA 589 as 79.6% on time with 0.00% cancelled over 348 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to SFO, every carrier and departure
- SFO to IAH, the return direction
- United Airlines 2358 on the same route72.0%
- United Airlines 1768 on the same route89.1%
- United Airlines 487 on the same route97.2%
- United Airlines 2611 on the same route76.8%
- United Airlines 1609 on the same route80.7%
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.