Flight number record
UA 1178
United Airlines · Chicago to Norfolk
- Route
- ORD → ORF
- Departs
- 18:15
- Flights
- 293
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1178, check with United Airlines.
UA 1178 draws a D. Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 293 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so UA 1178 runs 16 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 160 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
61.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 287 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.05%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
13.6%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 293 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When UA 1178 flies
UA 1178 flies ORD to ORF without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 18:15, used on 70 of 293 flights, with 17:45 (38 flights) and 18:19 (36 flights) next.
- Departs 18:1570 flights23.9%
- Departs 17:4538 flights13.0%
- Departs 18:1936 flights12.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 18:15 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and UA 1178 runs 7 points worse at 61.3%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
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Against the route
UA 1178 next to ORD to ORF
Every carrier on ORD to ORF combined arrived on time 71.8% of the time across 1,957 flights, so UA 1178 is 11 points behind it. United flew 590 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 66.1% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight trails by 18 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1178thin sample | 293 | 61.3% | 67 min | 2.05% | D |
| All United Airlines on ORD–ORF | 590 | 66.1% | 70 min | 1.53% | C |
| All carriers on ORD–ORF | 1,957 | 71.8% | 69 min | 2.55% | C |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 1178 quarter by quarter
UA 1178 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 76.7% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 55.6%, a swing of 21 points on roughly 73 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights76.7%
- Oct–Dec 202589 flights65.2%
- Jan–Mar 202685 flights55.6%
- Apr–Jun 202689 flights57.5%
Scale runs 45% to 80%.
By weekday, UA 1178 did best on Sunday at 70.7% on time and worst on Friday at 46.3%. Each day rests on about 42 flights, so a gap of 24 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 1178 runs when it is late
The 111 late arrivals split 36 under half an hour, 36 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 39 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early39 flights13.6%
- Within 15 min137 flights47.7%
- 15–29 min late36 flights12.5%
- 30–59 min late36 flights12.5%
- 1–2 hours late23 flights8.0%
- 2+ hours late16 flights5.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 287 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 90 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 10 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 31 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at ORF.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 1178
The latest arrival of the period was on 24 June 2026, 5 hours 28 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across June, May, February and November, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 24 June 2026 | 5 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 May 2026 | 4 hours 50 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 8 February 2026 | 4 hours 40 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 June 2026 | 4 hours 7 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 November 2025 | 3 hours 57 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why UA 1178 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 7,378 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 7,378 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 7,378 delay minutes reported on UA 1178.
Cancellations sit at 2.05% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
13.6% 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.
The 717 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The same number turns up on six other city pairs in the data, including SLC to ORD (71), ORD to GRR (41) and DTW to ORD (21), but none flew often enough under UA 1178 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to ORD to ORF only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 293 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking UA 1178
For a booking, UA 1178 is a flight to put a long connection behind. 13.6% of its completed flights arrived an hour or more late, which a short layover will not absorb. If the onward flight is on a separate ticket, the risk sits with you.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to ORF, every carrier and departure
- ORF to ORD, the return direction
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- United Airlines on-time record
- Every United Airlines flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
A flight number here means United Airlines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.