Flight profile · United Airlines
UA2656
Santa Ana (SNA) to Denver (DEN) · scheduled 6:40 PM – 10:00 PM
How UA2656 performs
701 operations, March 2024 – July 2026.
UA2656 arrived on time 85.7% of the time, against 83.3% for all SNA → DEN flights, so this departure is 2.4 percentage points better than the route as a whole.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 701 operations, March 2024 – July 2026 · If UA2656 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where UA2656 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2656 | 85.7% | 0.71% | -15 min | 6.2% | 701 |
| United Airlines on SNA → DEN | 86.1% | 0.46% | -11 min | 5.6% | 5,459 |
| All SNA → DEN flights | 83.3% | 0.66% | -8 min | 5.8% | 11,373 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · March 2024 – July 2026
Why UA2656 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 UA2656 on SNA → DEN. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering March 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies UA2656 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA2656 pushed back an average of 49 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 5 minutes early.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into SNA just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 680 of 696 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA2656 | 18% | 66% | 3% |
| 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 UA2656’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often UA2656 left 15 or more minutes late is about the same as 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 March 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves SNA late, does that still matter by the time it reaches DEN?
UA2656 pushes back an average of 5.4 minutes late and reaches the gate at DEN an average of 4.1 minutes early. The 9.4 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 13.2 minutes on the taxiways at SNA is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at DEN, UA2656 spends 8.1 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 DEN arrival (9.8 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 DEN. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 8,175 departures from SNA scheduled in the clock hour UA2656 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at DEN (963,027 flights), not just UA2656’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · March 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves SNA
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA2656 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 8,175 departures from SNA are scheduled in the 6 PM–7 PM hour over the period, against 137,357 across the whole day.
UA2656 is scheduled out of SNA at 6:40 PM, in the 6 PM–7 PM bank. Departures from SNA in that hour arrive on time 76.0% of the time against 82.2% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 6.2 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from SNA 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 · March 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes UA2656 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DEN→BOS Denver to Boston | October 26, 2025 – July 31, 2026 | 159 | 91.7% |
| MCO→EWR Orlando to Newark | January 6, 2026 – February 11, 2026 | 37 | — |
| LGA→IAH New York to Houston | December 2–17, 2025 | 16 | — |
| ORD→LAS Chicago to Las Vegas | December 3–18, 2024 | 16 | — |
| SAV→ORD Savannah to Chicago | December 3–18, 2024 | 12 | — |
| DEN→SEA Denver to Seattle | November 30, 2024 – December 1, 2024 | 2 | — |
| ALB→ORD Albany to Chicago | August 19, 2024 – September 25, 2024 | 38 | — |
| ORD→DEN Chicago to Denver | February 15, 2024 – March 6, 2024 | 21 | — |
| PIT→ORD Pittsburgh to Chicago | January 9, 2024 – February 14, 2024 | 37 | — |
| SNA→IAH Santa Ana to Houston | September 29, 2023 – January 8, 2024 | 102 | 87.3% |
| IAH→TUL Houston to Tulsa | July 1, 2023 – September 28, 2023 | 84 | — |
| SAT→IAH San Antonio to Houston | September 5–28, 2023 | 21 | — |
| AUS→IAH Austin to Houston | August 1, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 33 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA2656 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.
31 min late
against a median of 15 min early
Percentiles over 701 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering March 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2656 this flight | United Airlines | 85.7% | 15 min early | 701 |
| F94372 | Frontier Airlines | 82.1% | 9 min early | 753 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA2656 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 701 records of UA2656 operating SNA → DEN, 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