Flight profile · United Airlines
UA2116
Washington (IAD) to Dallas–Fort Worth (DFW) · scheduled 5:50 PM – 8:25 PM
How UA2116 performs
1,060 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
UA2116 arrived on time 66.0% of the time, against 77.6% for all IAD → DFW flights, so this departure is 11.6 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 12.9 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 1,060 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If UA2116 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 UA2116 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight runs unusually far behind the carrier's own average on this route, worse than 93% of 11,589 comparable flight numbers.
66.0% on time for this specific departure, against 78.9% for the same carrier's other flights on this route.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – 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 UA2116 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2116 | 66.0% | 0.75% | 3 min | 13.3% | 1,060 |
| United Airlines on IAD → DFW | 78.9% | 0.78% | -6 min | 8.5% | 2,965 |
| All IAD → DFW flights | 77.6% | 1.51% | -7 min | 8.7% | 5,634 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why UA2116 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
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 UA2116 on IAD → DFW. 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 UA2116 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA2116 pushed back an average of 49 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 10 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into IAD just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 940 of 1,052 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA2116 | 21% | 58% | 17% |
| Network, same turn | 17% | 68% | 9% |
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 UA2116’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often UA2116 left 15 or more minutes late is lower than 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 July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves IAD late, does that still matter by the time it reaches DFW?
On arrival at DFW, UA2116 spends 13.7 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 DFW 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 DFW. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 37,767 departures from IAD scheduled in the clock hour UA2116 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at DFW (961,642 flights), not just UA2116’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves IAD
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA2116 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 37,767 departures from IAD are scheduled in the 5 PM–6 PM hour over the period, against 170,208 across the whole day.
UA2116 is scheduled out of IAD at 5:50 PM, in the 5 PM–6 PM bank. Departures from IAD in that hour arrive on time 72.1% of the time against 81.0% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 8.9 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from IAD 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 UA2116 run worse on particular days?
Thursday is historically the most reliable day and Saturday the least, a gap of 9.1 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 UA2116 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ORD→MSP Chicago to Minneapolis | December 20, 2025 – January 3, 2026 | 3 | — |
| DFW→DEN Dallas–Fort Worth to Denver | November 29–30, 2025 | 2 | — |
| IAD→SLC Washington to Salt Lake City | March 6–29, 2025 | 24 | — |
| MCO→IAD Orlando to Washington | March 6–29, 2025 | 24 | — |
| ORD→MCO Chicago to Orlando | March 6–29, 2025 | 18 | — |
| ORD→MSY Chicago to New Orleans | February 10, 2025 | 1 | — |
| BTV→IAD Burlington to Washington | December 19, 2024 – January 6, 2025 | 13 | — |
| DFW→IAH Dallas–Fort Worth to Houston | November 30, 2024 – December 1, 2024 | 2 | — |
| IAH→AUS Houston to Austin | November 30, 2024 – December 1, 2024 | 2 | — |
| MIA→IAD Miami to Washington | July 1, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 66 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA2116 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.
86 min late
against a median of 3 min late
UA2116 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 3 min late, but the worst tenth are 83 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 1,060 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2314 | United Airlines | 86.1% | 8 min early | 669 |
| AA2617 | American Airlines | 84.5% | 12 min early | 1,097 |
| UA2116 this flight | United Airlines | 66.0% | 3 min late | 1,060 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA2116 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 1,060 records of UA2116 operating IAD → DFW, 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