Flight profile · United Airlines
UA496
Houston (IAH) to Orlando (MCO) · scheduled 2:35 PM – 6:00 PM
How UA496 performs
652 operations, August 2024 – July 2026.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 652 operations, August 2024 – July 2026 · If UA496 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where UA496 is right now
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA496 | 77.2% | 0.92% | -11 min | 12.5% | 652 |
| United Airlines on IAH → MCO | 79.6% | 1.19% | -8 min | 8.8% | 7,114 |
| All IAH → MCO flights | 77.6% | 1.40% | -8 min | 9.7% | 11,351 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · August 2024 – July 2026
Why UA496 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA496 on IAH → MCO. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering August 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies UA496 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying UA496 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, 583 of 647 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 |
|---|---|
| UA496 | 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 UA496’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 August 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves IAH late, does that still matter by the time it reaches MCO?
UA496 pushes back an average of 18.6 minutes late and reaches the gate at MCO an average of 9.5 minutes late. The 9.1 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 IAH is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at MCO, UA496 spends 7.3 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 3.6 minutes shorter than a typical MCO arrival (10.9 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 MCO. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 31,010 departures from IAH scheduled in the clock hour UA496 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at MCO (498,229 flights), not just UA496’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · August 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves IAH
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA496 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 31,010 departures from IAH are scheduled in the 2 PM–3 PM hour over the period, against 359,450 across the whole day.
UA496 is scheduled out of IAH at 2:35 PM, in the 2 PM–3 PM bank. Departures from IAH in that hour arrive on time 76.1% of the time against 77.4% across the airport’s whole day, so the hour UA496 leaves in is an ordinary one for IAH and explains nothing about its record either way.
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 · August 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes UA496 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→MSN Denver to Madison | July 1, 2023 – July 4, 2026 | 251 | 84.0% |
| SAN→IAH San Diego to Houston | May 22, 2025 – May 20, 2026 | 239 | 90.3% |
| PHX→IAH Phoenix to Houston | February 12, 2026 – March 4, 2026 | 21 | — |
| MCO→EWR Orlando to Newark | February 13, 2025 – February 8, 2026 | 53 | — |
| MCO→IAD Orlando to Washington | June 26, 2025 – October 25, 2025 | 121 | 64.5% |
| SFO→IAH San Francisco to Houston | October 27, 2024 – September 24, 2025 | 44 | — |
| LAS→IAH Las Vegas to Houston | August 19, 2025 – September 1, 2025 | 14 | — |
| PDX→IAH Portland to Houston | March 6, 2025 – May 21, 2025 | 77 | — |
| MCO→ORD Orlando to Chicago | March 6–29, 2025 | 18 | — |
| SNA→IAH Santa Ana to Houston | January 7, 2025 – February 12, 2025 | 37 | — |
| DEN→PWM Denver to Portland | June 27, 2024 – August 18, 2024 | 53 | — |
| DEN→AUS Denver to Austin | May 23, 2024 – June 26, 2024 | 35 | — |
| SYR→DEN Syracuse to Denver | May 23, 2024 – June 26, 2024 | 35 | — |
| DEN→LGA Denver to New York | March 7, 2024 – May 22, 2024 | 38 | — |
| TPA→DEN Tampa to Denver | May 2–22, 2024 | 21 | — |
| DEN→SFO Denver to San Francisco | March 31, 2024 – May 1, 2024 | 32 | — |
| DEN→RSW Denver to Fort Myers | March 9–30, 2024 | 4 | — |
| LGA→ORD New York to Chicago | March 7–29, 2024 | 20 | — |
| STL→DEN St. Louis to Denver | February 15, 2024 – March 6, 2024 | 21 | — |
| RAP→DEN Rapid City to Denver | December 21, 2023 – January 8, 2024 | 19 | — |
| DFW→DEN Dallas–Fort Worth to Denver | October 29, 2023 – November 27, 2023 | 28 | — |
| MEM→DEN Memphis to Denver | July 1–31, 2023 | 31 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA496 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.
75 min late
against a median of 11 min early
UA496 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 11 min early, but the worst tenth are 86 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 652 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering August 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2245 | United Airlines | 91.1% | 13 min early | 860 |
| UA2662 | United Airlines | 84.0% | 9 min early | 642 |
| UA413 | United Airlines | 83.5% | 8 min early | 888 |
| UA496 this flight | United Airlines | 77.2% | 11 min early | 652 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA496 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 652 records of UA496 operating IAH → MCO, 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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