Flight number record

UA 656

United Airlines · Austin to Houston

Route: AUS → IAH
Departs: 07:05
Flights: 270
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 656, check with United Airlines.

UA 656 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 35 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 270 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so UA 656 runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 50 extra late arrivals.

On time

72.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 266 completed flights

Avg delay

35 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.48%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

2.3%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 270 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Schedule

When UA 656 flies

UA 656 flies AUS to IAH without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:05, used on 167 of 270 flights, with 07:10 (52 flights) and 07:00 (42 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 07:05167 flights61.9%
Departs 07:1052 flights19.3%
Departs 07:0042 flights15.6%

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 07:05 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and UA 656 runs 17 points worse at 72.6%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

UA 656 next to AUS to IAH

Every carrier on AUS to IAH combined arrived on time 75.6% of the time across 2,674 flights, so UA 656 is 3 points behind it. United flew 2,608 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 75.5% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight trails by 6 points.

UA 656 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
UA 656thin sample	270	72.6%	35 min	1.48%	C
All United Airlines on AUS–IAH	2,608	75.5%	61 min	1.27%	B
All carriers on AUS–IAH	2,674	75.6%	62 min	1.23%	B
United Airlines, whole network	821,041	79.0%	72 min	1.01%	B

Across the year

UA 656 quarter by quarter

UA 656 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 83.7% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 57.1%, a swing of 27 points on roughly 90 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 202592 flights77.5%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights57.1%
Jan–Mar 202687 flights83.7%

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, UA 656 did best on Sunday at 91.9% on time and worst on Tuesday at 52.6%. Each day rests on about 39 flights, so a gap of 39 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why UA 656 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 73% of the 2,555 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.

National Airspace System
73%
Carrier
25%
Late-arriving aircraft
1%
Extreme weather
1%

73% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,865 minutes out of 2,555, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 2,555 delay minutes reported on UA 656.

Cancellations sit at 1.48% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.3% 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.

The same number turns up on nine other city pairs in the data, including CLE to ORD (76), IAH to ABQ (20) and ORD to CVG (8), but none flew often enough under UA 656 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to AUS to IAH only.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 270 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 656

For a booking, read UA 656 as 72.6% on time with 1.48% cancelled over 270 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures