Flight profile · United Airlines
UA1979
Newark (EWR) to Tampa (TPA) · scheduled 7:00 AM – 9:51 AM
How UA1979 performs
784 operations, February 2024 – July 2026.
UA1979 arrived on time 93.1% of the time, against 77.6% for all EWR → TPA flights, so this departure is 15.5 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 14.4 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 784 operations, February 2024 – July 2026 · If UA1979 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 UA1979 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight runs unusually far ahead of the EWR → TPA route as a whole, better than 98% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.
93.1% on time for this specific departure, against 77.6% for every EWR → TPA flight.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · February 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 UA1979 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1979 | 93.1% | 2.17% | -15 min | 1.7% | 784 |
| United Airlines on EWR → TPA | 78.7% | 2.64% | -10 min | 8.1% | 7,196 |
| All EWR → TPA flights | 77.6% | 2.79% | -9 min | 8.8% | 8,571 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · February 2024 – July 2026
Why UA1979 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA1979 on EWR → TPA. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering February 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies UA1979 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
UA1979 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 8 hours on the ground at EWR, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA1979 pushed back an average of 3 minutes early; when it came in on time or early, an average of 4 minutes early.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into EWR just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 550 of 767 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA1979 | 30% | 5% | 3% |
| Network, same turn | 29% | 12% | 9% |
A night on the ground absorbs most of a late arrival, so a late inbound matters far less on a turn this long than on a same-day one.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 6 hours or more, usually overnight. How often UA1979’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often UA1979 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 February 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves EWR late, does that still matter by the time it reaches TPA?
UA1979 pushes back an average of 1.6 minutes early and reaches the gate at TPA an average of 10.9 minutes early. The 9.3 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 23.6 minutes on the taxiways at EWR is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at TPA, UA1979 spends 5.3 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 TPA 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 TPA. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 30,783 departures from EWR scheduled in the clock hour UA1979 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at TPA (242,635 flights), not just UA1979’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · February 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves EWR
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA1979 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 30,783 departures from EWR are scheduled in the 7 AM–8 AM hour over the period, against 387,621 across the whole day.
UA1979 is scheduled out of EWR at 7:00 AM, in the 7 AM–8 AM bank. Departures from EWR in that hour arrive on time 86.4% of the time against 77.7% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 8.7 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from EWR 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 · February 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes UA1979 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| TPA→LAX Tampa to Los Angeles | April 30, 2026 – May 20, 2026 | 21 | — |
| EWR→DEN Newark to Denver | January 6–9, 2026 | 2 | — |
| TPA→IAH Tampa to Houston | March 7, 2024 – December 17, 2025 | 410 | 84.3% |
| IAH→DFW Houston to Dallas–Fort Worth | May 24, 2024 – September 1, 2025 | 20 | — |
| IAH→MIA Houston to Miami | August 1–18, 2025 | 11 | — |
| IAH→PHX Houston to Phoenix | June 26, 2025 – July 31, 2025 | 25 | — |
| IAH→PDX Houston to Portland | May 22, 2025 – June 25, 2025 | 35 | — |
| IAH→OMA Houston to Omaha | May 1–21, 2025 | 3 | — |
| IAH→LAS Houston to Las Vegas | December 3–18, 2024 | 16 | — |
| IAH→MSY Houston to New Orleans | March 7–29, 2024 | 19 | — |
| IAD→EWR Washington to Newark | September 5, 2023 – February 14, 2024 | 143 | 95.0% |
| ORD→IAH Chicago to Houston | December 21, 2023 – January 8, 2024 | 19 | — |
| EWR→CHS Newark to Charleston | September 29, 2023 | 1 | — |
| EWR→GSP Newark to Greenville/Greer/Spartanburg | September 5–28, 2023 | 23 | — |
| PDX→EWR Portland to Newark | July 1, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 66 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA1979 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.
8 min late
against a median of 15 min early
Percentiles over 784 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering February 2024 – July 2026
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 784 records of UA1979 operating EWR → TPA, 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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