Flight number record
UA 1216
United Airlines · Miami to Houston
- Route
- MIA → IAH
- Departs
- 16:53
- Flights
- 305
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1216, check with United Airlines.
UA 1216 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 305 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
73.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 302 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.66%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
11.3%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 305 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When UA 1216 flies
UA 1216 flies MIA to IAH without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 16:53, used on 108 of 305 flights, with 16:51 (37 flights) and 16:50 (36 flights) next.
- Departs 16:53108 flights35.4%
- Departs 16:5137 flights12.1%
- Departs 16:5036 flights11.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 16:53 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and UA 1216 runs level with that at 73.8%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
UA 1216 next to MIA to IAH
Every carrier on MIA to IAH combined arrived on time 78.8% of the time across 3,667 flights, so UA 1216 is 5 points behind it. United flew 1,438 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 87.5% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight trails by 5 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1216thin sample | 305 | 73.8% | 86 min | 0.66% | C+ |
| All United Airlines on MIA–IAH | 1,438 | 87.5% | 90 min | 0.49% | A+ |
| All carriers on MIA–IAH | 3,667 | 78.8% | 77 min | 1.17% | B |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 1216 quarter by quarter
UA 1216 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 83.1% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 68.3%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 76 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
- Oct–Dec 202563 flights69.4%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights83.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights71.4%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights68.3%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
By weekday, UA 1216 did best on Wednesday at 80.5% on time and worst on Sunday at 66.7%. Each day rests on about 44 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 1216 runs when it is late
The 79 late arrivals split 25 under half an hour, 20 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 34 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early75 flights24.8%
- Within 15 min148 flights49.0%
- 15–29 min late25 flights8.3%
- 30–59 min late20 flights6.6%
- 1–2 hours late21 flights7.0%
- 2+ hours late13 flights4.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 302 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
20 of 77 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 26% of them. In the other direction, 22 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at IAH.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 1216
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 March 2026, 21 hours 14 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across March, June and April, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 March 2026 | 21 hours 14 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 June 2026 | 7 hours 27 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 7 April 2026 | 4 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 June 2026 | 3 hours 54 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 11 March 2026 | 3 hours 29 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why UA 1216 runs late
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 6,768 reported delay minutes.
- 36%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 9%Extreme weather
36% 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 2,434 minutes out of 6,768, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 6,768 delay minutes reported on UA 1216.
Cancellations are rare at 0.66%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
11.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 964 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.
UA 1216 is not only a MIA to IAH flight. It also flew IAH to OMA (256 flights, 75.4% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 305 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IAH to OMAthin sample | 256 | 75.4% | 56 min | 0.00% | B+ |
What to do with this
Booking UA 1216
For a booking, UA 1216 is one of the weaker ways to fly MIA to IAH: 5 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.
Related
Where to go next
- MIA to IAH, every carrier and departure
- IAH to MIA, the return direction
- American Airlines 2230 on the same route68.3%
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- United Airlines on-time record
- Every United Airlines flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
A flight number here means United Airlines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.