Flight profile · United Airlines
UA1689
Washington (IAD) to Los Angeles (LAX) · scheduled 12:35 PM – 3:35 PM
How UA1689 performs
806 operations, January 2024 – July 2026.
UA1689 arrived on time 91.2% of the time, against 81.8% for all IAD → LAX flights, so this departure is 9.4 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 7.9 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 806 operations, January 2024 – July 2026 · If UA1689 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where UA1689 is right now
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1689 | 91.2% | 1.74% | -14 min | 0.9% | 806 |
| United Airlines on IAD → LAX | 83.3% | 1.01% | -9 min | 5.3% | 6,806 |
| All IAD → LAX flights | 81.8% | 0.96% | -8 min | 5.7% | 7,816 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · January 2024 – July 2026
Why UA1689 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA1689 on IAD → LAX. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering January 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies UA1689 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying UA1689 came in 15 or more minutes late on 7% of the departures where its previous flight is known. There are not enough departures in both groups to say how the flight left after a late one and after an on-time one.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into IAD just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 701 of 792 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 |
|---|---|
| UA1689 | 7% |
| Network, same turn | 17% |
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 60 to 89 minutes. How often UA1689’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s. There are not enough departures in both groups to compare how it left.
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 January 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves IAD late, does that still matter by the time it reaches LAX?
UA1689 pushes back an average of 1.9 minutes late and reaches the gate at LAX an average of 11.7 minutes early. The 13.6 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. Its 20.4 minutes on the taxiways at IAD is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at LAX, UA1689 spends 8.0 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 2.7 minutes shorter than a typical LAX arrival (10.7 min).
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 LAX. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 23,947 departures from IAD scheduled in the clock hour UA1689 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at LAX (595,170 flights), not just UA1689’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · January 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves IAD
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA1689 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 23,947 departures from IAD are scheduled in the 12 PM–1 PM hour over the period, against 170,208 across the whole day.
UA1689 is scheduled out of IAD at 12:35 PM, in the 12 PM–1 PM bank. Departures from IAD in that hour arrive on time 84.9% of the time against 81.0% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 3.9 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from IAD 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 · January 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes UA1689 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ORD→IAD Chicago to Washington | May 21, 2026 – July 31, 2026 | 71 | — |
| PIT→IAD Pittsburgh to Washington | March 29, 2026 – May 20, 2026 | 53 | — |
| CMH→IAD Columbus to Washington | March 5–28, 2026 | 24 | — |
| MCO→IAD Orlando to Washington | March 31, 2024 – January 5, 2026 | 493 | 90.2% |
| LAX→PHX Los Angeles to Phoenix | March 7–29, 2025 | 23 | — |
| PBI→ORD West Palm Beach to Chicago | December 21, 2023 – January 8, 2024 | 16 | — |
| MCO→EWR Orlando to Newark | November 28, 2023 – December 20, 2023 | 23 | — |
| DTW→DEN Detroit to Denver | October 29, 2023 – November 27, 2023 | 29 | — |
| EWR→PBI Newark to West Palm Beach | September 29, 2023 – October 28, 2023 | 30 | — |
| GSP→EWR Greenville/Greer/Spartanburg to Newark | September 5–28, 2023 | 23 | — |
| IAH→DEN Houston to Denver | September 16, 2023 | 1 | — |
| IAH→SFO Houston to San Francisco | July 1, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 66 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA1689 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.
12 min late
against a median of 14 min early
Percentiles over 806 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering January 2024 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1689 this flight | United Airlines | 91.2% | 14 min early | 806 |
| UA2276 | United Airlines | 68.8% | 1 min early | 944 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA1689 is placed in the same ordering rather than left out of it; the rows around it are the most punctual departures on the route, not all of them, so this is a comparison and not a rank. Schedules change; confirm the departure still operates before booking around this.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 806 records of UA1689 operating IAD → LAX, 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
Analysis last recomputed