Flight number record
UA 1285
United Airlines · Chicago to Pittsburgh
- Route
- ORD → PIT
- Departs
- 07:15
- Flights
- 299
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1285, check with United Airlines.
UA 1285 earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 10 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 299 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 1285's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 101 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 294 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.67%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.7%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 299 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Schedule
When UA 1285 flies
UA 1285 flies ORD to PIT without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:15, used on 84 of 299 flights, with 07:10 (80 flights) and 07:25 (67 flights) next.
- Departs 07:1584 flights28.1%
- Departs 07:1080 flights26.8%
- Departs 07:2567 flights22.4%
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 07:15 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and UA 1285 runs level with that at 87.4%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
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Against the route
UA 1285 next to ORD to PIT
Every carrier on ORD to PIT combined arrived on time 73.6% of the time across 4,029 flights, so UA 1285 is 14 points ahead of it. United flew 1,318 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 74.2% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight beats by 9 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1285thin sample | 299 | 87.4% | 59 min | 1.67% | A |
| All United Airlines on ORD–PIT | 1,318 | 74.2% | 68 min | 1.37% | C |
| All carriers on ORD–PIT | 4,029 | 73.6% | 82 min | 2.28% | C |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 1285 quarter by quarter
UA 1285 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 92.8% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 80.6%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 60 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 flights90.0%
- Oct–Dec 202561 flights83.3%
- Jan–Mar 202663 flights80.6%
- Apr–Jun 202683 flights92.8%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights89.8%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
By weekday, UA 1285 did best on Tuesday at 97.7% on time and worst on Monday at 77.8%. Each day rests on about 43 flights, so a gap of 20 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 1285 runs when it is late
UA 1285 often beats the schedule: 98 of 294 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 19 of the 37 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 11 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early98 flights33.3%
- Within 15 min159 flights54.1%
- 15–29 min late19 flights6.5%
- 30–59 min late7 flights2.4%
- 1–2 hours late5 flights1.7%
- 2+ hours late6 flights2.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 294 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 28 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 2 made it up before arrival. 11 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 1285
The latest arrival of the period was on 14 January 2026, 5 hours 3 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. The five worst days are spread across January, May, November, March and February, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 14 January 2026 | 5 hours 3 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 24 May 2026 | 3 hours 20 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 2 November 2025 | 2 hours 59 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 March 2026 | 2 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 February 2026 | 2 hours 20 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why UA 1285 runs late
Carrier accounts for 42% of the 2,179 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Carrier
- 23%Extreme weather
- 18%National Airspace System
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
Extreme weather accounts for 23% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the quarterly figures above are the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 2,179 delay minutes reported on UA 1285.
Cancellations sit at 1.67% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.7% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The same number turns up on eight other city pairs in the data, including DEN to PHL (19), PHL to ORD (16) and ORD to CVG (16), but none flew often enough under UA 1285 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to ORD to PIT only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 299 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 1285
For a booking, read UA 1285 as 87.4% on time with 1.67% cancelled over 299 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to PIT, every carrier and departure
- PIT to ORD, the return direction
- Republic Airways 3464 on the same route77.4%
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) 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
- Late aircraft, weather, or the airline: what actually causes US flight delays
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.