Carrier performance at one airport

UA→ORD

United Airlines at Chicago O'Hare International

Departures: 102,132
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Routes: 25
Rank here: #4 of 12

United Airlines at Chicago sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 102,132 flights, of which Envoy Air flew 57,966 at 76.1% on time.

Measured against the airport rather than the country, United Airlines runs 2 points ahead of the 70.7% weighted average across all carriers at ORD. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.

On time

73.0%

100,541 completed departures

Avg delay

73 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

1.30%

At ORD, this carrier only

Rank here

Of 12 carriers clearing the floor at ORD

These figures cover 102,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.

Against the competition

Every carrier at ORD, ranked

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 76.1% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 60.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,832 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance of all carriers departing ORD
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Air	57,966	76.1%	65 min	2.93%	B
Republic Airways	33,415	76.1%	74 min	3.81%	B−
JetBlue Airways	1,293	73.1%	99 min	6.34%	C−
United Airlines (this page)	102,132	73.0%	73 min	1.30%	C
Delta Air Lines	10,687	72.0%	91 min	3.13%	C−
Southwest Airlines	3,139	71.3%	70 min	1.40%	C
Frontier Airlines	4,179	67.7%	109 min	3.76%	C−
Alaska Airlines	3,346	67.4%	70 min	1.82%	C
American Airlines	61,506	66.4%	82 min	2.56%	C
SkyWest Airlines	78,955	65.8%	88 min	4.06%	C−
Spirit Airlines	3,558	63.4%	83 min	5.99%	D−
PSA Airlines	2,832	60.2%	127 min	7.06%	D−

PSA Airlines cancels 7.1% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.

Route by route

Where United Airlines flies from ORD

United Airlines operates 25 routes out of ORD with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.

United Airlines routes from ORD
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
ORD to LGA · New York	4,671	66.1%	83 min	3.98%	C−
ORD to EWR · Newark	4,415	72.0%	89 min	2.85%	C
ORD to IAH · Houston	4,080	80.0%	70 min	0.66%	B+
ORD to DEN · Denver	3,888	78.3%	76 min	0.87%	B+
ORD to SFO · San Francisco	3,883	69.1%	75 min	0.82%	C+
ORD to LAX · Los Angeles	3,416	76.7%	70 min	0.64%	B+
ORD to DCA · Washington	3,411	70.1%	74 min	2.14%	C
ORD to BOS · Boston	2,794	68.0%	80 min	1.79%	C
ORD to MCO · Orlando	2,537	79.0%	70 min	0.71%	B+
ORD to MSP · Minneapolis	2,401	70.2%	70 min	1.29%	C
ORD to LAS · Las Vegas	2,354	79.5%	68 min	0.30%	B+
ORD to CLE · Cleveland	2,182	71.8%	78 min	1.28%	C
ORD to IAD · Washington	2,103	75.9%	78 min	0.76%	B+
ORD to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	2,080	74.1%	75 min	1.30%	C
ORD to PHX · Phoenix	1,989	78.3%	73 min	0.55%	B+
ORD to PHL · Philadelphia	1,849	71.2%	81 min	1.57%	C
ORD to ATL · Atlanta	1,717	74.5%	67 min	1.34%	C
ORD to SAN · San Diego	1,677	76.4%	62 min	0.42%	B+
ORD to RSW · Fort Myers	1,615	81.6%	67 min	0.62%	B+
ORD to AUS · Austin	1,550	77.8%	66 min	1.10%	B
ORD to FLL · Fort Lauderdale	1,522	76.8%	66 min	0.79%	B+
ORD to BNA · Nashville	1,510	69.3%	78 min	1.85%	C
ORD to MCI · Kansas City	1,504	71.2%	75 min	1.60%	C
ORD to SEA · Seattle	1,489	74.0%	59 min	0.60%	C+
ORD to TPA · Tampa	1,443	78.0%	74 min	0.62%	B+

Flight by flight

United Airlines flight numbers from ORD

66 United Airlines flight numbers leaving ORD flew their main route often enough to have a record of their own. Grouped by destination.

Departure window

Best time of day for this operation

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 30 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am12,919 flights89.9%
8am–11am21,873 flights80.0%
11am–2pm16,258 flights76.5%
2pm–5pm20,430 flights69.1%
5pm–8pm16,880 flights60.3%
8pm–5am13,772 flights62.7%

Scale runs 50% to 95%.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.3% on time, against 89.9% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 21,873 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Seasonal pattern

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, August worst

August is the worst month at 65.3% on time, 15 points below February, the best at 80.6%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. August was the busiest month here, with 10,067 flights.

Delay causes

What holds this operation up

Late-arriving aircraft
45%
National Airspace System
25%
Carrier
23%
Extreme weather
6%

45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 1.99 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 1,987,716 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.30% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.26%.

10.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

102,132 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 80.6% on time and August 65.3%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 100,541 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

United Airlines at ORD

How often is United Airlines at ORD delayed?

About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.0% of the 102,132 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on United Airlines at ORD?

Envoy Air leads at 76.1% on time across 57,966 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 60.2%, a gap of 16 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.

What time of day has the fewest delays on United Airlines at ORD?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.3%, 30 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.

How bad are August delays on United Airlines at ORD?

August is the weakest month at 65.3% on time, compared with 80.6% in February. Across the year that is 15 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures