Flight number record
UA 2086
United Airlines · Houston to Columbus
- Route
- IAH → CMH
- Departs
- 18:30
- Flights
- 347
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 2086, check with United Airlines.
UA 2086 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 347 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
74.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 342 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.44%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
7.9%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 347 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Schedule
When UA 2086 flies
UA 2086 flies IAH to CMH without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 18:30, used on 79 of 347 flights, with 18:50 (52 flights) and 20:15 (41 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 18:3079 flights22.8%
- Departs 18:5052 flights15.0%
- Departs 20:1541 flights11.8%
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 18:30 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and UA 2086 runs 7 points better at 74.9%. 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 2086 next to IAH to CMH
Every carrier on IAH to CMH combined arrived on time 77.0% of the time across 548 flights, so UA 2086 is 2 points behind it. United flew 543 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.8% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight trails by 4 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 2086thin sample | 347 | 74.9% | 57 min | 1.44% | C |
| All United Airlines on IAH–CMH | 543 | 76.8% | 71 min | 0.92% | B+ |
| All carriers on IAH–CMH | 548 | 77.0% | 71 min | 0.91% | B+ |
| United Airlines, whole network | 821,041 | 79.0% | 72 min | 1.01% | B |
Across the year
UA 2086 quarter by quarter
UA 2086 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 82.6% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 71.4%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 87 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 202583 flights73.2%
- Oct–Dec 202590 flights72.2%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights82.6%
- Apr–Jun 202685 flights71.4%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 2086 did best on Saturday at 84.2% on time and worst on Friday at 62.7%. Each day rests on about 50 flights, so a gap of 22 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why UA 2086 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 60% of the 4,888 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
60% 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 4,888 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 27 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 4,888 delay minutes reported on UA 2086.
Cancellations sit at 1.44% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
7.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 986 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.
UA 2086 is not only a IAH to CMH flight. It also flew LAX to IAH (288 flights, 84.7% 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. 347 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LAX to IAHthin sample | 288 | 84.7% | 61 min | 0.00% | B+ |
What to do with this
Booking UA 2086
For a booking, read UA 2086 as 74.9% on time with 1.44% cancelled over 347 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) 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
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.