Flight number record

UA 2081

United Airlines · Washington to Atlanta

Route: IAD → ATL
Departs: 17:55
Flights: 314
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 2081, check with United Airlines.

UA 2081 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 314 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so UA 2081 runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 87 extra late arrivals.

On time

68.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 312 completed flights

Avg delay

93 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.32%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

17.0%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 314 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 17.0% 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.

Schedule

When UA 2081 flies

UA 2081 flies IAD to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 17:55, used on 85 of 314 flights, with 17:45 (73 flights) and 17:17 (34 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 17:5585 flights27.1%
Departs 17:4573 flights23.2%
Departs 17:1734 flights10.8%

Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.

A 17:55 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and UA 2081 runs level with that at 68.9%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.

Against the route

UA 2081 next to IAD to ATL

Every carrier on IAD to ATL combined arrived on time 79.2% of the time across 3,976 flights, so UA 2081 is 10 points behind it. United flew 1,097 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 80.9% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight trails by 10 points.

UA 2081 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
UA 2081thin sample	314	68.9%	93 min	0.32%	C+
All United Airlines on IAD–ATL	1,097	80.9%	89 min	0.46%	B+
All carriers on IAD–ATL	3,976	79.2%	88 min	2.06%	B
United Airlines, whole network	821,041	79.0%	72 min	1.01%	B

Across the year

UA 2081 quarter by quarter

UA 2081 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 78.9% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 63.1%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 79 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.

Jul–Sep 202581 flights63.8%
Oct–Dec 202572 flights70.8%
Jan–Mar 202677 flights78.9%
Apr–Jun 202684 flights63.1%

Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, UA 2081 did best on Tuesday at 82.4% on time and worst on Sunday at 58.7%. Each day rests on about 45 flights, so a gap of 24 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why UA 2081 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 9,063 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
36%
National Airspace System
34%
Carrier
20%
Extreme weather
11%

36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 9,063 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 9,063 delay minutes reported on UA 2081.

Cancellations are rare at 0.32%, below the national 1.81% 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

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 17.0% 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 534 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 same number turns up on five other city pairs in the data, including LAX to IAD (45), PIT to IAD (25) and EWR to BZN (19), but none flew often enough under UA 2081 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to IAD to ATL only.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 314 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.

What to do with this

Booking UA 2081

For a booking, UA 2081 is a flight to put a long connection behind. 17.0% of its completed flights arrived an hour or more late, which a short layover will not absorb. If the onward flight is on a separate ticket, the risk sits with you.

Where to go next

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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures