Flight profile · United Airlines
UA2491
Houston (IAH) to San Diego (SAN) · scheduled 9:30 AM – 10:51 AM
How UA2491 performs
620 operations, September 2024 – July 2026.
UA2491 arrived on time 85.8% of the time, against 80.3% for all IAH → SAN flights, so this departure is 5.5 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 5.5 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 620 operations, September 2024 – July 2026 · If UA2491 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where UA2491 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2491 | 85.8% | 0.81% | -10 min | 4.4% | 620 |
| United Airlines on IAH → SAN | 80.3% | 1.17% | -6 min | 6.7% | 5,319 |
| All IAH → SAN flights | 80.3% | 1.21% | -6 min | 6.7% | 5,436 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · September 2024 – July 2026
Why UA2491 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
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 UA2491 on IAH → SAN. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering September 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies UA2491 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying UA2491 came in 15 or more minutes late on 11% 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, 443 of 615 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 |
|---|---|
| UA2491 | 11% |
| 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 UA2491’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 September 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves IAH late, does that still matter by the time it reaches SAN?
UA2491 pushes back an average of 7.0 minutes late and reaches the gate at SAN an average of 2.6 minutes early. The 9.6 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 20.8 minutes on the taxiways at IAH is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at SAN, UA2491 spends 5.0 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 about what any arrival at SAN 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 SAN. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 27,050 departures from IAH scheduled in the clock hour UA2491 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at SAN (297,664 flights), not just UA2491’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · September 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves IAH
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA2491 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 27,050 departures from IAH are scheduled in the 9 AM–10 AM hour over the period, against 359,450 across the whole day.
UA2491 is scheduled out of IAH at 9:30 AM, in the 9 AM–10 AM bank. Departures from IAH in that hour arrive on time 82.7% of the time against 77.4% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 5.3 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 · September 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes UA2491 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| TPA→IAH Tampa to Houston | January 6, 2026 – July 31, 2026 | 206 | 94.1% |
| SAN→DEN San Diego to Denver | January 6, 2026 – February 11, 2026 | 37 | — |
| PIT→IAH Pittsburgh to Houston | May 23, 2024 – December 17, 2025 | 469 | 87.6% |
| SAN→EWR San Diego to Newark | September 25, 2025 – October 24, 2025 | 26 | — |
| DSM→ORD Des Moines to Chicago | June 15–22, 2025 | 2 | — |
| IAH→RNO Houston to Reno | May 24, 2025 – June 21, 2025 | 5 | — |
| SAN→ORD San Diego to Chicago | March 30, 2025 – May 21, 2025 | 53 | — |
| MSP→DEN Minneapolis to Denver | May 2–22, 2024 | 21 | — |
| MSY→EWR New Orleans to Newark | March 31, 2024 – May 1, 2024 | 32 | — |
| LAS→EWR Las Vegas to Newark | March 7–30, 2024 | 24 | — |
| SFO→LAS San Francisco to Las Vegas | March 7–30, 2024 | 24 | — |
| ORD→BDL Chicago to Hartford | February 15, 2024 – March 6, 2024 | 21 | — |
| LGA→IAH New York to Houston | July 1, 2023 – February 14, 2024 | 214 | 92.0% |
| ORD→RSW Chicago to Fort Myers | January 6, 2024 | 1 | — |
| IAH→LAS Houston to Las Vegas | December 25, 2023 – January 5, 2024 | 11 | — |
| IAH→SLC Houston to Salt Lake City | July 1, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 64 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA2491 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.
29 min late
against a median of 10 min early
Percentiles over 620 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering September 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2491 this flight | United Airlines | 85.8% | 10 min early | 620 |
| UA2674 | United Airlines | 70.4% | 2 min late | 663 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA2491 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 620 records of UA2491 operating IAH → SAN, 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