Carrier route record

UAEWR→PBI

United Airlines · Newark to West Palm Beach

Flights: 2,770
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 77%
Carriers: 3

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

United on EWR to PBI lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,770 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on EWR to PBI from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

79.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,708 completed flights

Avg delay

69 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.95%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.1%

Every carrier on EWR to PBI, 3,611 flights

These figures cover 2,770 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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.

Carrier by carrier

United against every carrier on EWR to PBI

United flew 2,770 of the 3,611 flights on EWR to PBI, most of the route. Its 79.1% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 79.1% to Spirit at 51.5%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.

On-time performance by carrier on EWR to PBI
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines (this page)	2,770	79.1%	69 min	1.95%	B
JetBlue Airways	721	73.3%	69 min	2.77%	C
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	120	51.5%	72 min	14.17%	F−

Flight by flight

United flight numbers on EWR to PBI

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 half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am426 flights91.6%
8am–11am642 flights82.4%
11am–2pm529 flights76.7%
2pm–5pm590 flights75.7%
5pm–8pm419 flights71.4%
8pm–5am164 flights73.2%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.6% of the time, against 71.4% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 642 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

United on EWR to PBI through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.May best, October worst

May is the best month on the calendar at 87.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 307 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.2%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

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 39,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
35%
National Airspace System
34%
Carrier
23%
Extreme weather
8%
Security
0%

35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 39,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 38,820 reported delay minutes.

34% 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 13,000 minutes out of 39,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations sit at 1.95% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.29%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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.

The 1,024 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg runs 76.3% on time across 2,773 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

The sample behind these figures is 2,770 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.

What to do with this

Booking United on EWR to PBI

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 87.1% on time and October 72.2%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of October before you think about anything else. 2,708 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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