Flight number record
UA 252
United Airlines · Honolulu to Houston
- Route
- HNL → IAH
- Departs
- 20:30
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 252, check with United Airlines.
UA 252 lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 252's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 55 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 361 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.27%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
1.7%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
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Schedule
When UA 252 flies
UA 252 flies HNL to IAH without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 20:30, used on 126 of 365 flights, with 19:50 (82 flights) and 19:40 (54 flights) next.
- Departs 20:30126 flights34.5%
- Departs 19:5082 flights22.5%
- Departs 19:4054 flights14.8%
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 20:30 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and UA 252 runs 13 points better at 82.8%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
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Against the route
UA 252 next to HNL to IAH
Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight beats by 4 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 252 | 365 | 82.8% | 53 min | 0.27% | B+ |
| All United Airlines on HNL–IAH | 365 | 82.8% | 53 min | 0.27% | B+ |
| All carriers on HNL–IAH | 365 | 82.8% | 53 min | 0.27% | B+ |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 252 quarter by quarter
UA 252 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 75.0%, a swing of 22 points on roughly 73 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 202530 flights96.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights81.5%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights75.0%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights79.1%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights95.0%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
By weekday, UA 252 did best on Thursday at 88.5% on time and worst on Tuesday at 73.1%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 15 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 252 runs when it is late
UA 252 often beats the schedule: 102 of 361 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 37 of the 62 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 6 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early102 flights28.3%
- Within 15 min197 flights54.6%
- 15–29 min late37 flights10.2%
- 30–59 min late19 flights5.3%
- 1–2 hours late2 flights0.6%
- 2+ hours late4 flights1.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 361 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 35 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 11 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 38 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 252
The latest arrival of the period was on 6 January 2026, 17 hours 6 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 6 January 2026 | 17 hours 6 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 December 2025 | 3 hours 31 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 June 2026 | 3 hours 11 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 July 2026 | 2 hours 26 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 August 2026 | 1 hour 9 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why UA 252 runs late
Carrier accounts for 59% of the 3,269 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Carrier
- 30%National Airspace System
- 11%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 59%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,933 of the 3,269 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,269 delay minutes reported on UA 252.
Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 1.7% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% 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 3,904 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.
Every one of the 365 flights under UA 252 in the data flew HNL to IAH. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 365 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 252
For a booking, read UA 252 as 82.8% on time with 0.27% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) 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
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.