Flight number record
UA 697
United Airlines · Washington to Houston
- Route
- DCA → IAH
- Departs
- 08:20
- Flights
- 341
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 697, check with United Airlines.
UA 697 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 13 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 341 flights, with a median arrival 21 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 697's record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 132 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
90.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 337 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.17%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 341 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 21 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 697 flies
UA 697 flies DCA to IAH without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:20, used on 157 of 341 flights, with 08:15 (107 flights) and 08:30 (53 flights) next.
- Departs 08:20157 flights46.0%
- Departs 08:15107 flights31.4%
- Departs 08:3053 flights15.5%
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 08:20 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and UA 697 runs 7 points better at 90.5%. 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 697 next to DCA to IAH
Every carrier on DCA to IAH combined arrived on time 80.3% of the time across 3,333 flights, so UA 697 is 10 points ahead of it. United flew 2,384 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 83.5% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight beats by 12 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 697thin sample | 341 | 90.5% | 67 min | 1.17% | A |
| All United Airlines on DCA–IAH | 2,384 | 83.5% | 85 min | 0.80% | B+ |
| All carriers on DCA–IAH | 3,333 | 80.3% | 79 min | 2.31% | B |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 697 quarter by quarter
UA 697 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 95.5% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 85.0%, a swing of 11 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 202530 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights89.0%
- Jan–Mar 202668 flights95.5%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights91.1%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights85.0%
Scale runs 75% to 100%.
By weekday, UA 697 ranged from 87.5% on Friday to 93.6% on Wednesday. With about 49 flights behind each day, a spread of 6 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 697 runs when it is late
UA 697 often beats the schedule: 230 of 337 completed flights, 68%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 32 late arrivals split 9 under half an hour, 13 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 10 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early230 flights68.2%
- Within 15 min75 flights22.3%
- 15–29 min late9 flights2.7%
- 30–59 min late13 flights3.9%
- 1–2 hours late4 flights1.2%
- 2+ hours late6 flights1.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 337 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
3 of 25 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 12% of them. 10 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 697
The latest arrival of the period was on 6 July 2026, 4 hours 48 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as national airspace system delay.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 6 July 2026 | 4 hours 48 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 March 2026 | 4 hours 10 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 15 June 2026 | 2 hours 30 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 25 December 2025 | 2 hours 19 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 27 January 2026 | 2 hours 15 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why UA 697 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 52% of the 2,156 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%National Airspace System
- 40%Carrier
- 6%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
52% 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 1,118 minutes out of 2,156, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 2,156 delay minutes reported on UA 697.
Cancellations sit at 1.17% against a national 1.89%, 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 3.0% 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 1,208 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 IAH to SAT (204), SAT to ORD (116) and SBP to DEN (1), but none flew often enough under UA 697 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to DCA to IAH 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 697
For a booking, UA 697 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 90.5% on time and 1.17% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to IAH, every carrier and departure
- IAH to DCA, the return direction
- United Airlines 382 on the same route89.4%
- United Airlines 1450 on the same route92.8%
- United Airlines 1785 on the same route64.8%
- United Airlines 1381 on the same route77.4%
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) 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.