Flight number record
UA 2224
United Airlines · Houston to Washington
- Route
- IAH → DCA
- Departs
- 19:50
- Flights
- 308
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 2224, check with United Airlines.
UA 2224 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 308 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so UA 2224 runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 78 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 305 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.97%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
11.1%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 308 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.1% 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 2224 flies
UA 2224 flies IAH to DCA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 19:50, used on 178 of 308 flights, with 19:53 (68 flights) and 20:00 (38 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 19:50178 flights57.8%
- Departs 19:5368 flights22.1%
- Departs 20:0038 flights12.3%
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 19:50 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and UA 2224 runs level with that at 69.8%. 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 2224 next to IAH to DCA
Every carrier on IAH to DCA combined arrived on time 74.8% of the time across 3,202 flights, so UA 2224 is 5 points behind it. United flew 2,413 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 75.2% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight trails by 9 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 2224thin sample | 308 | 69.8% | 57 min | 0.97% | C+ |
| All United Airlines on IAH–DCA | 2,413 | 75.2% | 70 min | 0.79% | B+ |
| All carriers on IAH–DCA | 3,202 | 74.8% | 73 min | 1.81% | C |
| United Airlines, whole network | 821,041 | 79.0% | 72 min | 1.01% | B |
Across the year
UA 2224 quarter by quarter
UA 2224 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 88.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 55.6%, a swing of 33 points on roughly 77 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 202591 flights55.6%
- Oct–Dec 202568 flights70.6%
- Jan–Mar 202664 flights88.7%
- Apr–Jun 202685 flights70.6%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 2224 did best on Tuesday at 91.5% on time and worst on Sunday at 56.8%. Each day rests on about 44 flights, so a gap of 35 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why UA 2224 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 5,195 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
44% 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 5,195 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 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 5,195 delay minutes reported on UA 2224.
Cancellations sit at 0.97% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
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. 11.1% 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 1,208 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 nine other city pairs in the data, including PIT to IAH (50), OMA to IAH (37) and SJC to IAH (36), but none flew often enough under UA 2224 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to IAH to DCA only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 308 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 2224
For a booking, UA 2224 is one of the weaker ways to fly IAH to DCA: 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
- IAH to DCA, every carrier and departure
- DCA to IAH, the return direction
- United Airlines 1627 on the same route64.2%
- United Airlines 2311 on the same route83.6%
- United Airlines 654 on the same route75.8%
- United Airlines 512 on the same route93.6%
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) 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.