Flight number record
UA 2186
United Airlines · Santa Ana to Newark
- Route
- SNA → EWR
- Departs
- 21:05
- Flights
- 346
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 2186, check with United Airlines.
UA 2186 earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 13 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 4.0 hours. That rests on 346 flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 2186's record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 132 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
90.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 338 completed flights
Avg delay
238 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.02%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
3.0%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 346 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 14 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 2186 flies
UA 2186 flies SNA to EWR without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 21:05, used on 132 of 346 flights, with 21:14 (114 flights) and 21:10 (58 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 21:05132 flights38.2%
- Departs 21:14114 flights32.9%
- Departs 21:1058 flights16.8%
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 21:05 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and UA 2186 runs 20 points better at 90.8%. 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 2186 next to SNA to EWR
Every carrier on SNA to EWR combined arrived on time 78.7% of the time across 1,092 flights, so UA 2186 is 12 points ahead of it. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight beats by 12 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 2186thin sample | 346 | 90.8% | 238 min | 2.02% | A |
| All United Airlines on SNA–EWR | 1,092 | 78.7% | 122 min | 1.74% | B |
| All carriers on SNA–EWR | 1,092 | 78.7% | 122 min | 1.74% | B |
| United Airlines, whole network | 821,041 | 79.0% | 72 min | 1.01% | B |
Across the year
UA 2186 quarter by quarter
UA 2186 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 95.9% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 85.1%, 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 202574 flights95.9%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights92.0%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights85.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights91.0%
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 2186 did best on Saturday at 100.0% on time and worst on Sunday at 78.7%. Each day rests on about 49 flights, so a gap of 21 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why UA 2186 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Extreme weather accounts for 64% of the 7,361 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.
- 64%Extreme weather
- 24%Carrier
- 7%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 64% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the quarterly figures above are the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 10.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 7,361 delay minutes reported on UA 2186.
Cancellations sit at 2.02% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.29%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.0% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 2,433 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The same number turns up on one other city pair in the data, including DEN to MSP (18), but none flew often enough under UA 2186 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to SNA to EWR only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 346 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 2186
For a booking, read UA 2186 as 90.8% on time with 2.02% cancelled over 346 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- SNA to EWR, every carrier and departure
- EWR to SNA, the return direction
- United Airlines 1559 on the same route60.2%
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) 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
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.