Flight profile · United Airlines
UA2253
Washington (IAD) to New Orleans (MSY) · scheduled 9:00 AM – 10:03 AM
How UA2253 performs
810 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
UA2253 arrived on time 91.1% of the time, against 83.5% for all IAD → MSY flights, so this departure is 7.6 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 7.7 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 810 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If UA2253 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where UA2253 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2253 | 91.1% | 1.85% | -11 min | 2.9% | 810 |
| United Airlines on IAD → MSY | 83.4% | 1.31% | -7 min | 6.7% | 1,978 |
| All IAD → MSY flights | 83.5% | 1.29% | -7 min | 6.7% | 2,009 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why UA2253 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 UA2253 on IAD → MSY. 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 UA2253 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
UA2253 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 8.3 hours on the ground at IAD, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
The aircraft flying UA2253 came in 15 or more minutes late on 15% 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 IAD just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 637 of 795 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 |
|---|---|
| UA2253 | 15% |
| Network, same turn | 29% |
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 UA2253’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 IAD late, does that still matter by the time it reaches MSY?
UA2253 pushes back an average of 0.5 minutes late and reaches the gate at MSY an average of 5.6 minutes early. The 6.1 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 19.7 minutes on the taxiways at IAD is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at MSY, UA2253 spends 4.3 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 1.1 minutes shorter than a typical MSY arrival (5.4 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 MSY. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 7,688 departures from IAD scheduled in the clock hour UA2253 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at MSY (154,323 flights), not just UA2253’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. UA2253 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 7,688 departures from IAD are scheduled in the 9 AM–10 AM hour over the period, against 170,208 across the whole day.
UA2253 is scheduled out of IAD at 9:00 AM, in the 9 AM–10 AM bank. Departures from IAD in that hour arrive on time 87.6% of the time against 81.0% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 6.7 points better 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.
Other routes UA2253 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSY→IAH New Orleans to Houston | October 1, 2023 – July 31, 2026 | 327 | 79.9% |
| DEN→LIT Denver to Little Rock | May 20, 2026 | 1 | — |
| IAH→OMA Houston to Omaha | February 3, 2026 | 1 | — |
| MKE→DEN Milwaukee to Denver | December 18, 2025 – January 5, 2026 | 19 | — |
| IAH→STL Houston to St. Louis | December 8–15, 2025 | 2 | — |
| ORD→DSM Chicago to Des Moines | June 15–22, 2025 | 2 | — |
| SAN→ORD San Diego to Chicago | June 1, 2025 | 1 | — |
| IAH→LAX Houston to Los Angeles | April 27, 2025 | 1 | — |
| MCI→IAH Kansas City to Houston | March 9–23, 2025 | 3 | — |
| RDU→IAD Raleigh–Durham to Washington | February 13, 2025 – March 5, 2025 | 8 | — |
| SFO→SAN San Francisco to San Diego | December 19, 2024 – January 6, 2025 | 17 | — |
| CLE→ORD Cleveland to Chicago | June 27, 2024 – August 16, 2024 | 37 | — |
| ORD→JAX Chicago to Jacksonville | May 26, 2024 | 1 | — |
| SDF→SFO Louisville to San Francisco | May 5, 2024 | 1 | — |
| IAH→EGE Houston to Eagle | December 24, 2023 – January 6, 2024 | 14 | — |
| SFO→LIH San Francisco to Lihue, Kauai | November 4, 2023 – December 9, 2023 | 4 | — |
| ORD→CMH Chicago to Columbus | November 26, 2023 | 1 | — |
| IAD→MCO Washington to Orlando | November 16, 2023 | 1 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA2253 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.
13 min late
against a median of 11 min early
Percentiles over 810 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 810 records of UA2253 operating IAD → MSY, 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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