Flight profile · United Airlines
UA1559
Santa Ana (SNA) to Newark (EWR) · scheduled 12:45 PM – 9:00 PM
How UA1559 performs
673 operations, August 2024 – July 2026.
UA1559 arrived on time 62.1% of the time, against 81.9% for all SNA → EWR flights, so this departure is 19.8 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 19.8 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 673 operations, August 2024 – July 2026 · If UA1559 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
What stands out
How UA1559 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight's worst arrivals run unusually far past its typical one, a bigger gap than 100% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.
A typical arrival is 1 min late, but the worst tenth run 178 minutes worse than that.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · August 2024 – July 2026 · The one thing about this specific departure that ranks most extreme against every other published flight number, out of everything FlyerIntel checks — shown only when something clears a real statistical bar, not for every flight.
Where UA1559 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1559 | 62.1% | 1.49% | 1 min | 23.2% | 673 |
| United Airlines on SNA → EWR | 81.9% | 1.87% | -11 min | 9.7% | 3,368 |
| All SNA → EWR flights | 81.9% | 1.87% | -11 min | 9.7% | 3,368 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · August 2024 – July 2026
Why UA1559 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA1559 on SNA → EWR. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering August 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies UA1559 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA1559 pushed back an average of 77 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 33 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into SNA just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 657 of 663 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA1559 | 19% | 80% | 27% |
| Network, same turn | 18% | 85% | 10% |
The schedule leaves a normal turn: enough time to clean and board if the aircraft is on time, little to spare if it is not.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 45 to 59 minutes. How often UA1559’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often UA1559 left 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering August 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves SNA late, does that still matter by the time it reaches EWR?
UA1559 pushes back an average of 44.1 minutes late and reaches the gate at EWR an average of 35.2 minutes late. The 8.8 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. It spends 16.8 minutes on the taxiways at SNA, 1.1 minutes longer than a typical SNA departure in the same hour.
On arrival at EWR, UA1559 spends 9.8 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is about what any arrival at EWR spends on the ground before reaching the gate.
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached EWR. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 10,131 departures from SNA scheduled in the clock hour UA1559 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at EWR (387,854 flights), not just UA1559’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · August 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves SNA
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA1559 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 10,131 departures from SNA are scheduled in the 12 PM–1 PM hour over the period, against 137,357 across the whole day.
UA1559 is scheduled out of SNA at 12:45 PM, in the 12 PM–1 PM bank. Departures from SNA in that hour arrive on time 78.3% of the time against 82.2% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 3.9 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from SNA to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · August 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes UA1559 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| DEN→MTJ Denver to Montrose | June 1–25, 2025 | 25 | — |
| EWR→SAT Newark to San Antonio | May 22–31, 2025 | 10 | — |
| EWR→ORD Newark to Chicago | November 30, 2024 – December 1, 2024 | 2 | — |
| RAP→DEN Rapid City to Denver | March 31, 2024 – August 18, 2024 | 141 | 82.7% |
| EWR→TPA Newark to Tampa | March 7–30, 2024 | 24 | — |
| HDN→EWR Hayden to Newark | December 21, 2023 – March 4, 2024 | 55 | — |
| LAX→DEN Los Angeles to Denver | November 28, 2023 – December 20, 2023 | 23 | — |
| SFO→AUS San Francisco to Austin | October 29, 2023 – November 27, 2023 | 30 | — |
| SMF→IAD Sacramento to Washington | September 29, 2023 – October 28, 2023 | 30 | — |
| IAD→CMH Washington to Columbus | October 1–26, 2023 | 17 | — |
| ORD→RDU Chicago to Raleigh–Durham | September 5–28, 2023 | 23 | — |
| MKE→DEN Milwaukee to Denver | September 10, 2023 | 1 | — |
| SFO→MSY San Francisco to New Orleans | July 1, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 66 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA1559 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
179 min late
against a median of 1 min late
UA1559 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 1 min late, but the worst tenth are 178 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 673 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering August 2024 – July 2026
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 673 records of UA1559 operating SNA → EWR, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
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