Flight profile · United Airlines
UA2196
Austin (AUS) to Houston (IAH) · scheduled 9:35 AM – 10:45 AM
How UA2196 performs
941 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
UA2196 arrived on time 82.4% of the time, against 78.5% for all AUS → IAH flights, so this departure is 3.9 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 4.0 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 941 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If UA2196 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where UA2196 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2196 | 82.4% | 2.34% | -5 min | 4.5% | 941 |
| United Airlines on AUS → IAH | 78.4% | 1.51% | -3 min | 6.7% | 7,214 |
| All AUS → IAH flights | 78.5% | 1.48% | -3 min | 6.8% | 7,507 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why UA2196 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 UA2196 on AUS → IAH. 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 UA2196 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying UA2196 came in 15 or more minutes late on 9% 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 AUS just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 744 of 923 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 |
|---|---|
| UA2196 | 9% |
| 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 UA2196’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 AUS late, does that still matter by the time it reaches IAH?
On arrival at IAH, UA2196 spends 9.2 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 1.5 minutes shorter than a typical IAH arrival (10.7 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 IAH. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 13,588 departures from AUS scheduled in the clock hour UA2196 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at IAH (359,471 flights), not just UA2196’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves AUS
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA2196 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 13,588 departures from AUS are scheduled in the 9 AM–10 AM hour over the period, against 272,521 across the whole day.
UA2196 is scheduled out of AUS at 9:35 AM, in the 9 AM–10 AM bank. Departures from AUS in that hour arrive on time 86.5% of the time against 78.0% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 8.5 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from AUS 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 UA2196 run worse on particular days?
Saturday is historically the most reliable day and Thursday the least, a gap of 8.9 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 UA2196 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| IAH→RDU Houston to Raleigh–Durham | April 30, 2026 – July 31, 2026 | 48 | — |
| XNA→IAH Fayetteville/Springdale/Rogers to Houston | June 2, 2026 | 1 | — |
| IAH→PHL Houston to Philadelphia | March 30, 2025 – March 4, 2026 | 173 | 85.5% |
| DEN→AUS Denver to Austin | May 23, 2025 – June 23, 2025 | 17 | — |
| JAC→DEN Jackson to Denver | May 2, 2025 | 1 | — |
| STL→IAH St. Louis to Houston | April 6–27, 2025 | 4 | — |
| IAH→CMH Houston to Columbus | December 3–18, 2024 | 14 | — |
| IAH→BNA Houston to Nashville | June 27, 2024 – August 18, 2024 | 51 | — |
| BNA→EWR Nashville to Newark | August 1–9, 2024 | 7 | — |
| IAH→EWR Houston to Newark | March 31, 2024 – May 22, 2024 | 53 | — |
| PDX→IAH Portland to Houston | March 31, 2024 – May 22, 2024 | 53 | — |
| IAH→LGA Houston to New York | March 7–29, 2024 | 20 | — |
| IAD→ORD Washington to Chicago | September 14, 2023 | 1 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA2196 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.
26 min late
against a median of 5 min early
Percentiles over 941 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2196 this flight | United Airlines | 82.4% | 5 min early | 941 |
| UA685 | United Airlines | 69.8% | 2 min late | 742 |
| UA1326 | United Airlines | 68.3% | 5 min late | 804 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA2196 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 941 records of UA2196 operating AUS → IAH, 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