Flight profile · United Airlines
UA252
Honolulu (HNL) to Houston (IAH) · scheduled 7:55 PM – 8:31 AM
How UA252 performs
1,127 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 1,127 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If UA252 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where UA252 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA252 | 86.6% | 0.71% | -9 min | 2.1% | 1,127 |
| United Airlines on HNL → IAH | 87.2% | 0.82% | -9 min | 2.2% | 1,213 |
| All HNL → IAH flights | 87.2% | 0.82% | -9 min | 2.2% | 1,213 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why UA252 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
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA252 on HNL → 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 UA252 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA252 pushed back an average of 5 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 4 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into HNL just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 1,103 of 1,119 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA252 | 22% | 15% | 12% |
| Network, same turn | 33% | 24% | 11% |
The schedule leaves a long gap on the ground, which gives a late aircraft room to catch up before this flight pushes back.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 3 to 6 hours. How often UA252’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often UA252 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 HNL late, does that still matter by the time it reaches IAH?
UA252 pushes back an average of 4.9 minutes late and reaches the gate at IAH an average of 5.7 minutes early. The 10.7 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 19.8 minutes on the taxiways at HNL, 4.7 minutes longer than a typical HNL departure in the same hour.
On arrival at IAH, UA252 spends 8.9 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 1.7 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 8,409 departures from HNL scheduled in the clock hour UA252 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 UA252’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves HNL
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA252 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 8,409 departures from HNL are scheduled in the 7 PM–8 PM hour over the period, against 186,300 across the whole day.
UA252 is scheduled out of HNL at 7:55 PM, in the 7 PM–8 PM bank. Departures from HNL in that hour arrive on time 85.5% of the time against 85.3% across the airport’s whole day, so the hour UA252 leaves in is an ordinary one for HNL and explains nothing about its record either way.
The two airport figures cover every departure from HNL 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 UA252 run worse on particular days?
Thursday is historically the most reliable day and Tuesday the least, a gap of 10.4 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Days with fewer than 120 operations are not scored.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
20 min late
against a median of 9 min early
Percentiles over 1,127 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 1,127 records of UA252 operating HNL → 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