Flight profile · United Airlines
UA1886
Houston (IAH) to Newark (EWR) · scheduled 7:20 AM – 11:58 AM
How UA1886 performs
861 operations, February 2024 – July 2026.
UA1886 arrived on time 88.5% of the time, against 75.3% for all IAH → EWR flights, so this departure is 13.2 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 13.6 points better.
UA1886’s scheduled departure has moved during the period FlyerIntel has on file: it typically left around 7:45 AM earlier on, and around 7:15 AM more recently — a 30-minute shift, not the few minutes of day-to-day rounding every published schedule carries. Confirm the current departure time before booking around an older listing.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 861 operations, February 2024 – July 2026 · If UA1886 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
What stands out
How UA1886 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight runs unusually far ahead of the carrier's own average on this route, better than 97% of 11,589 comparable flight numbers.
88.5% on time for this specific departure, against 74.9% for the same carrier's other flights on this route.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · February 2024 – July 2026 · The one thing about this specific departure that ranks most extreme against every other published flight number, out of everything FlyerIntel checks — shown only when something clears a real statistical bar, not for every flight.
Where UA1886 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1886 | 88.5% | 1.51% | -9 min | 3.8% | 861 |
| United Airlines on IAH → EWR | 74.9% | 2.07% | -5 min | 10.0% | 10,558 |
| All IAH → EWR flights | 75.3% | 2.16% | -6 min | 9.9% | 11,534 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · February 2024 – July 2026
Why UA1886 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA1886 on IAH → EWR. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering February 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies UA1886 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
UA1886 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 7.8 hours on the ground at IAH, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA1886 pushed back an average of 3 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 4 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into IAH just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 489 of 848 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 | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA1886 | 28% | 10% | 8% |
| Network, same turn | 29% | 12% | 9% |
A night on the ground absorbs most of a late arrival, so a late inbound matters far less on a turn this long than on a same-day one.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 6 hours or more, usually overnight. How often UA1886’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often UA1886 left 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s.
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 February 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves IAH late, does that still matter by the time it reaches EWR?
UA1886 pushes back an average of 5.4 minutes late and reaches the gate at EWR an average of 1.3 minutes early. The 6.7 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. It spends 21.6 minutes on the taxiways at IAH, 1.6 minutes longer than a typical IAH departure in the same hour.
On arrival at EWR, UA1886 spends 8.0 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 2.1 minutes shorter than a typical EWR arrival (10.1 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 EWR. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 33,814 departures from IAH scheduled in the clock hour UA1886 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at EWR (387,854 flights), not just UA1886’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · February 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves IAH
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA1886 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 33,814 departures from IAH are scheduled in the 7 AM–8 AM hour over the period, against 359,450 across the whole day.
UA1886 is scheduled out of IAH at 7:20 AM, in the 7 AM–8 AM bank. Departures from IAH in that hour arrive on time 87.9% of the time against 77.4% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 10.5 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from IAH 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 · February 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
By day of week
Does UA1886 run worse on particular days?
Thursday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 9.1 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · February 2024 – July 2026 · Days with fewer than 120 operations are not scored.
Other routes UA1886 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| BZN→DEN Bozeman to Denver | January 7, 2025 – February 12, 2025 | 37 | — |
| CHS→EWR Charleston to Newark | September 29, 2023 – February 14, 2024 | 37 | — |
| ORD→CHS Chicago to Charleston | July 1, 2023 – January 26, 2024 | 94 | 89.1% |
| ORD→EWR Chicago to Newark | December 21, 2023 – January 8, 2024 | 19 | — |
| PIT→ORD Pittsburgh to Chicago | November 28, 2023 – December 20, 2023 | 23 | — |
| EWR→ORD Newark to Chicago | October 29, 2023 – November 27, 2023 | 29 | — |
| SFO→EWR San Francisco to Newark | October 29, 2023 – November 27, 2023 | 29 | — |
| IAH→DCA Houston to Washington | September 5–28, 2023 | 24 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA1886 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.
18 min late
against a median of 9 min early
Percentiles over 861 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering February 2024 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1886 this flight | United Airlines | 88.5% | 9 min early | 861 |
| UA404 | United Airlines | 67.2% | 1 min late | 646 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA1886 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 861 records of UA1886 operating IAH → EWR, 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
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