Flight number record
UA 486
United Airlines · Cleveland to Denver
- Route
- CLE → DEN
- Departs
- 16:38
- Flights
- 363
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 486, check with United Airlines.
UA 486 lands a B+, 5 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 486's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 52 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
6.4%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 363 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 486 flies
UA 486 flies CLE to DEN without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 16:38, used on 81 of 363 flights, with 16:20 (37 flights) next.
- Departs 16:3881 flights22.3%
- Departs 16:2037 flights10.2%
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 16:38 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and UA 486 runs 11 points better at 82.5%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
UA 486 next to CLE to DEN
Every carrier on CLE to DEN combined arrived on time 82.4% of the time across 1,845 flights, so UA 486 is about level with it. United flew 940 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 87.5% on time. 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 486thin sample | 363 | 82.5% | 79 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| All United Airlines on CLE–DEN | 940 | 87.5% | 69 min | 0.11% | A+ |
| All carriers on CLE–DEN | 1,845 | 82.4% | 63 min | 0.54% | B+ |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 486 quarter by quarter
UA 486 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 62.1%, a swing of 31 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 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights90.1%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights82.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights84.6%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights62.1%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
By weekday, UA 486 ranged from 76.0% on Thursday to 86.5% on Sunday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 11 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 486 runs when it is late
UA 486 often beats the schedule: 116 of 360 completed flights, 32%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 63 late arrivals split 21 under half an hour, 19 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 23 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early116 flights32.2%
- Within 15 min181 flights50.3%
- 15–29 min late21 flights5.8%
- 30–59 min late19 flights5.3%
- 1–2 hours late7 flights1.9%
- 2+ hours late16 flights4.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 360 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 52 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 4 made it up before arrival. 15 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 486
The latest arrival of the period was on 14 July 2026, 5 hours 56 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in July 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 14 July 2026 | 5 hours 56 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 February 2026 | 5 hours 6 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 July 2026 | 4 hours 46 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 22 July 2026 | 4 hours 32 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 December 2025 | 4 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why UA 486 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 4,954 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%National Airspace System
- 27%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,954 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 38 to one. The split is drawn from 4,954 delay minutes reported on UA 486.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
6.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,201 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.
UA 486 is not only a CLE to DEN flight. It also flew MCO to CLE (250 flights, 91.9% 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. 363 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MCO to CLEthin sample | 250 | 91.9% | 52 min | 0.80% | A+ |
What to do with this
Booking UA 486
For a booking, read UA 486 as 82.5% on time with 0.00% cancelled over 363 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- CLE to DEN, every carrier and departure
- DEN to CLE, the return direction
- United Airlines 690 on the same route90.8%
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.