Route reliability record
IAD→EWR
Washington to Newark
- Flights
- 1,501
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 212 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,501 IAD to EWR flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly IAD to EWR: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 78.5%, against 75.3% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
75.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,465 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.27%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
75.2% on time across 1,480 flights
These figures cover 1,501 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on IAD to EWR
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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 21 | 85.0% | 75 min | 4.76% | A− |
| United Airlines | 1,480 | 75.2% | 89 min | 2.23% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on IAD to EWR
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to Newark
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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DCA → JFKWashington to New York | JetBlue Airways | 77.1% | 81.9% | 5.83% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. BWI → ISPBaltimore to Islip | Southwest Airlines | 76.0% | 77.5% | 1.97% | 11am–2pm, Fri | — |
| 3. IAD → EWRWashington to Newark | United Airlines | 73.5% | 75.2% | 2.23% | 5am–8am, Wed (route) | UA 2669 06:00 |
| 4. DCA → JFKWashington to New York | Republic Airways | 73.1% | 77.2% | 5.37% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 5713 17:00 |
| 5. IAD → LGAWashington to New York | Republic Airways | 69.0% | 73.8% | 6.53% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 44 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–8am364 flights96.1%
- 8am–11am364 flights75.8%
- 11am–2pm42 flights76.2%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm365 flights51.7%
- 8pm–5am366 flights77.4%
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 51.7% on time, against 96.1% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 366 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 36 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.
July is the worst month at 53.9% on time, 36 points below May, the best at 89.4%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. June was the busiest month here, with 150 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 71.8%. 7 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 32,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 13%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 13% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 32,157 reported delay minutes.
42% 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 32,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 2.27% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.9% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 212 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 73.9% on time across 1,502 flights, within about a point 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 1,501 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 EWR 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. May runs 89.4% on time and July 53.9%, a swing of 36 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,465 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IAD to EWR questions
How often is IAD to EWR delayed?
About 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 24.7% of the 1,501 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is IAD to EWR compared with the rest of the country?
75.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on IAD to EWR?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 51.7%, 44 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 July delays on IAD to EWR?
July is the weakest month at 53.9% on time, compared with 89.4% in May. Across the year that is 36 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
- EWR to IAD — the return legseparate record
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- IAD to ATL, a related route79.2%
- MCO to EWR, a related route73.8%
- IAD to DEN, a related route81.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record85.0%
- United Airlines on-time record75.2%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. IAD to EWR and EWR to IAD 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.