Route reliability record
EWR→SLC
Newark to Salt Lake City
- Flights
- 1,338
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,969 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,338 EWR to SLC flights, of which United Airlines flew 615 at 77.0% on time.
Best time to fly EWR to SLC: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.3%, against 76.9% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,306 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.24%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
77.0% on time across 615 flights
These figures cover 1,338 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on EWR to SLC
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 615 | 77.0% | 62 min | 2.11% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 723 | 76.7% | 89 min | 2.35% | B |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 77.0%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on EWR to SLC
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Newark to Salt Lake City
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. JFK → SLCNew York to Salt Lake City | Delta Air Lines | 77.1% | 78.6% | 1.95% | 8am–11am, Mon | DL 892 06:00 |
| 2. EWR → SLCNewark to Salt Lake City | United Airlines | 75.4% | 77.0% | 2.11% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. EWR → SLCNewark to Salt Lake City | Delta Air Lines | 74.9% | 76.7% | 2.35% | 5am–8am, Fri | DL 1009 07:15 |
| 4. JFK → SLCNew York to Salt Lake City | JetBlue Airways | 64.7% | 67.6% | 4.33% | 5pm–8pm, Mon | B6 71 18:30 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 25 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am523 flights80.9%
- 8am–11am128 flights92.6%
- 11am–2pm22 flights—
- 2pm–5pm90 flights70.1%
- 5pm–8pm399 flights72.8%
- 8pm–5am176 flights67.3%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 92.6% of the time, against 67.3% for the overnight window. That is 25 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 523 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter EWR to SLC by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On EWR to SLC, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 92.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 67.3%, a wide gap of 25.3 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am80.9%
- 8–11am92.6%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm70.1%
- 5–8pm72.8%
- 8pm–5am67.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
September is the best month on the calendar at 91.1% 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 167 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.3% on time and Saturday the weakest at 73.2%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 23,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,528 of the 23,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 23,080 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 92.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.24% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.6% 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 1,969 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.1% on time across 1,338 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,338 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SLC after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 91.1% on time and November 64.4%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of November before you think about anything else. 1,306 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
EWR to SLC questions
How often is EWR to SLC delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.1% of the 1,338 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on EWR to SLC?
United Airlines leads at 77.0% on time across 615 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 76.7%, a gap of half a point. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on EWR to SLC?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 92.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 67.3%, 25 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are November delays on EWR to SLC?
November is the weakest month at 64.4% on time, compared with 91.1% in September. Across the year that is 27 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- SLC to EWR — the return legseparate record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- United Airlines on EWR to SLC77.0%
- Delta Air Lines on EWR to SLC76.7%
- EWR to MCO, a related route77.9%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- EWR to ATL, a related route76.9%
- United Airlines on-time record77.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record76.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. EWR to SLC and SLC to EWR are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.