Carrier route record
UAIAH→EWR
United Airlines · Houston to Newark
- Flights
- 3,534
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 93%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on IAH to EWR sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,534 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on IAH to EWR from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,467 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.56%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.6%
Every carrier on IAH to EWR, 3,800 flights
These figures cover 3,534 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% 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
United against every carrier on IAH to EWR
United flew 3,534 of the 3,800 flights on IAH to EWR, most of the route. Its 74.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 75.5% to United at 74.5%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 266 | 75.5% | 65 min | 6.39% | B− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 3,534 | 74.5% | 72 min | 1.56% | C |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on IAH to EWR
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 31 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–8am569 flights92.4%
- 8am–11am628 flights80.8%
- 11am–2pm861 flights72.5%
- 2pm–5pm720 flights61.5%
- 5pm–8pm395 flights65.4%
- 8pm–5am361 flights75.4%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.4% of the time, against 61.5% for the afternoon window. That is 31 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 861 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on IAH to EWR through the year
July is the worst month at 63.5% on time, 21 points below January, the best at 84.9%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 311 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.5%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 47% of the 63,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 47%National Airspace System
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% 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 30,000 minutes out of 63,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 63,368 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.56% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.34%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,400 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.4% on time across 3,534 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,534 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 IAH to EWR
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 84.9% on time and July 63.5%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,467 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to EWR, every carrier
- United on EWR to IAH, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on IAH to EWR75.5%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.