Flight profile · United Airlines
UA1621
Los Angeles (LAX) to Orlando (MCO) · scheduled 10:15 AM – 6:09 PM
How UA1621 performs
1,074 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
UA1621 arrived on time 87.9% of the time, against 79.1% for all LAX → MCO flights, so this departure is 8.8 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 1.0 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 1,074 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If UA1621 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where UA1621 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1621 | 87.9% | 1.02% | -12 min | 3.7% | 1,074 |
| United Airlines on LAX → MCO | 88.9% | 0.89% | -13 min | 3.1% | 2,353 |
| All LAX → MCO flights | 79.1% | 0.75% | -5 min | 6.8% | 9,918 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why UA1621 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA1621 on LAX → MCO. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies UA1621 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying UA1621 came in 15 or more minutes late on 11% of the departures where its previous flight is known. There are not enough departures in both groups to say how the flight left after a late one and after an on-time one.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into LAX just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 871 of 1,063 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late |
|---|---|
| UA1621 | 11% |
| Network, same turn | 17% |
The schedule leaves a normal turn: enough time to clean and board if the aircraft is on time, little to spare if it is not.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 60 to 89 minutes. How often UA1621’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s. There are not enough departures in both groups to compare how it left.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves LAX late, does that still matter by the time it reaches MCO?
UA1621 pushes back an average of 3.0 minutes late and reaches the gate at MCO an average of 6.1 minutes early. The 9.1 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. Its 19.4 minutes on the taxiways at LAX is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at MCO, UA1621 spends 7.0 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is 3.9 minutes shorter than a typical MCO arrival (10.9 min).
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached MCO. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 40,609 departures from LAX scheduled in the clock hour UA1621 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at MCO (498,229 flights), not just UA1621’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves LAX
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA1621 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 40,609 departures from LAX are scheduled in the 10 AM–11 AM hour over the period, against 595,153 across the whole day.
UA1621 is scheduled out of LAX at 10:15 AM, in the 10 AM–11 AM bank. Departures from LAX in that hour arrive on time 79.8% of the time against 81.4% across the airport’s whole day, so the hour UA1621 leaves in is an ordinary one for LAX and explains nothing about its record either way.
The two airport figures cover every departure from LAX to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
By day of week
Does UA1621 run worse on particular days?
Friday is historically the most reliable day and Monday the least, a gap of 7.4 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Days with fewer than 120 operations are not scored.
Other routes UA1621 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| MCO→ORD Orlando to Chicago | March 7, 2024 – July 31, 2026 | 84 | — |
| ORD→CLE Chicago to Cleveland | April 2–27, 2026 | 16 | — |
| MCO→SFO Orlando to San Francisco | March 5–28, 2026 | 21 | — |
| SMF→LAX Sacramento to Los Angeles | February 14, 2026 – March 1, 2026 | 7 | — |
| ORD→LAX Chicago to Los Angeles | December 18, 2025 – January 5, 2026 | 17 | — |
| LAS→DEN Las Vegas to Denver | June 29, 2025 | 1 | — |
| MCO→CLE Orlando to Cleveland | March 6–29, 2025 | 21 | — |
| ORD→ABQ Chicago to Albuquerque | October 27, 2024 – December 2, 2024 | 37 | — |
| MCO→EWR Orlando to Newark | September 29–30, 2023 | 2 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA1621 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
22 min late
against a median of 12 min early
Percentiles over 1,074 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1730 | United Airlines | 89.3% | 13 min early | 967 |
| UA1621 this flight | United Airlines | 87.9% | 12 min early | 1,074 |
| DL482 | Delta Air Lines | 82.6% | 4 min early | 782 |
| DL718 | Delta Air Lines | 79.9% | 5 min early | 973 |
| DL547 | Delta Air Lines | 77.4% | 3 min early | 601 |
| DL867 | Delta Air Lines | 73.4% | 0 min early | 1,035 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA1621 is placed in the same ordering rather than left out of it; the rows around it are the most punctual departures on the route, not all of them, so this is a comparison and not a rank. Schedules change; confirm the departure still operates before booking around this.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,074 records of UA1621 operating LAX → MCO, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
Analysis last recomputed