Flight profile · United Airlines
UA2086
Houston (IAH) to Columbus (CMH) · scheduled 8:15 PM – 11:59 PM
How UA2086 performs
611 operations, October 2024 – July 2026.
UA2086 arrived on time 74.1% of the time, against 75.2% for all IAH → CMH flights, so this departure is 1.1 percentage points worse 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 · 611 operations, October 2024 – July 2026 · If UA2086 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where UA2086 is right now
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2086 | 74.1% | 1.31% | -2 min | 9.1% | 611 |
| United Airlines on IAH → CMH | 75.1% | 1.17% | -2 min | 9.7% | 1,794 |
| All IAH → CMH flights | 75.2% | 1.17% | -2 min | 9.7% | 1,800 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · October 2024 – July 2026
Why UA2086 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA2086 on IAH → CMH. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering October 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies UA2086 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying UA2086 came in 15 or more minutes late on 23% 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 IAH just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 493 of 604 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 |
|---|---|
| UA2086 | 23% |
| 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 UA2086’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher 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 October 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves IAH late, does that still matter by the time it reaches CMH?
UA2086 pushes back an average of 15.4 minutes late and reaches the gate at CMH an average of 10.4 minutes late. The 5.1 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. It spends 22.7 minutes on the taxiways at IAH, 1.1 minutes longer than a typical IAH departure in the same hour.
On arrival at CMH, UA2086 spends 8.1 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 about what any arrival at CMH spends on the ground before reaching the gate.
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 CMH. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 34,354 departures from IAH scheduled in the clock hour UA2086 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at CMH (134,023 flights), not just UA2086’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · October 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves IAH
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA2086 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 34,354 departures from IAH are scheduled in the 8 PM–9 PM hour over the period, against 359,450 across the whole day.
UA2086 is scheduled out of IAH at 8:15 PM, in the 8 PM–9 PM bank. Departures from IAH in that hour arrive on time 71.5% of the time against 77.4% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 5.9 points worse 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 · October 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes UA2086 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| LAX→IAH Los Angeles to Houston | May 1, 2025 – July 31, 2026 | 370 | 82.1% |
| SEA→LAX Seattle to Los Angeles | May 1, 2025 – March 31, 2026 | 23 | — |
| ORD→DTW Chicago to Detroit | February 3, 2026 | 1 | — |
| PHX→IAH Phoenix to Houston | February 13, 2025 – April 30, 2025 | 53 | — |
| MSP→IAH Minneapolis to Houston | January 7, 2025 – February 12, 2025 | 32 | — |
| IAH→DEN Houston to Denver | September 26, 2024 – October 26, 2024 | 31 | — |
| IAH→LAS Houston to Las Vegas | July 1, 2023 – September 25, 2024 | 422 | 70.9% |
| MSY→IAD New Orleans to Washington | September 5–28, 2023 | 23 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA2086 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.
55 min late
against a median of 2 min early
Percentiles over 611 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering October 2024 – July 2026
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 611 records of UA2086 operating IAH → CMH, 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