Carrier route record
UAEWR→MSP
United Airlines · Newark to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 496
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 22%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on EWR to MSP sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 496 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 481 at 86.8% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so United on EWR to MSP runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 40 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 479 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.82%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
79.3%
Every carrier on EWR to MSP, 2,226 flights
These figures cover 496 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on EWR to MSP
United flew 496 of the 2,226 flights on EWR to MSP, about 22% of it. Its 73.3% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 86.8% to SkyWest at 66.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 86.8% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 79.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,240 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 481 | 86.8% | 50 min | 6.44% | A− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,240 | 79.0% | 116 min | 4.60% | B− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 496 | 73.3% | 83 min | 2.82% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 9 | 66.7% | 25 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Republic Airways cancels 6.4% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 20 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am107 flights82.9%
- 8am–11am21 flights—
- 11am–2pm6 flights—
- 2pm–5pm213 flights74.6%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am149 flights62.9%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.9% on time, against 82.9% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 213 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on EWR to MSP through the year
- Jul–Sep 202585 flights78.6%
- Oct–Dec 2025125 flights67.5%
- Jan–Mar 20264 flights—
- Apr–Jun 2026116 flights75.7%
- Jul–Sep 2026166 flights73.9%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 73.3% on time across 496 flights.
United on EWR to MSP did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 78.6% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 67.5%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 124 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.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 81.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 62.5%, a spread of 19 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on EWR to MSP runs when it is late
United on EWR to MSP often beats the schedule: 132 of 479 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 128 late arrivals split 35 under half an hour, 40 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 53 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early132 flights27.6%
- Within 15 min219 flights45.7%
- 15–29 min late35 flights7.3%
- 30–59 min late40 flights8.4%
- 1–2 hours late28 flights5.8%
- 2+ hours late25 flights5.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 479 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
16 of 120 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 13% of them. In the other direction, 24 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 MSP.
The worst days
Worst days for United on EWR to MSP
The latest arrival of the period was on 12 June 2026, 9 hours 43 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across June, July and August, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 12 June 2026 | 9 hours 43 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 July 2026 | 8 hours 6 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 July 2026 | 8 hours 4 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 27 August 2026 | 6 hours | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 August 2026 | 5 hours 17 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
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 11,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 10,648 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,860 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.82%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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 stage length
What a delay here costs
11.1% 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 1,008 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 return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.4% on time across 495 flights, 5 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 496 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 United on EWR to MSP
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.82% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 479 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to MSP, every carrier
- United on MSP to EWR, the return leg
- Republic Airways on EWR to MSP86.8%
- Delta Air Lines on EWR to MSP79.0%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.