Flight number record
UA 1491
United Airlines · Kansas City to Chicago
- Route
- MCI → ORD
- Departs
- 08:00
- Flights
- 276
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1491, check with United Airlines.
UA 1491 lands a B, 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That rests on 276 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 1491's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 65 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 271 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.45%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
4.8%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 276 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 1491 flies
UA 1491 flies MCI to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:00, used on 118 of 276 flights, with 07:53 (81 flights) and 07:30 (75 flights) next.
- Departs 08:00118 flights42.8%
- Departs 07:5381 flights29.3%
- Departs 07:3075 flights27.2%
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 08:00 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and UA 1491 runs level with that at 83.8%. 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 1491 next to MCI to ORD
Every carrier on MCI to ORD combined arrived on time 74.6% of the time across 4,280 flights, so UA 1491 is 9 points ahead of it. United flew 1,502 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 75.6% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight beats by 5 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1491thin sample | 276 | 83.8% | 52 min | 1.45% | B |
| All United Airlines on MCI–ORD | 1,502 | 75.6% | 90 min | 2.26% | B |
| All carriers on MCI–ORD | 4,280 | 74.6% | 101 min | 2.94% | C |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 1491 quarter by quarter
UA 1491 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 75.0%, a swing of 22 points on roughly 55 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 flights96.7%
- Oct–Dec 202540 flights75.0%
- Jan–Mar 202682 flights80.0%
- Apr–Jun 202662 flights88.5%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights83.3%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
By weekday, UA 1491 did best on Tuesday at 92.3% on time and worst on Sunday at 71.1%. Each day rests on about 39 flights, so a gap of 21 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 1491 runs when it is late
Most of the lateness is short. 22 of the 44 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 13 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early66 flights24.4%
- Within 15 min161 flights59.4%
- 15–29 min late22 flights8.1%
- 30–59 min late9 flights3.3%
- 1–2 hours late9 flights3.3%
- 2+ hours late4 flights1.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 271 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Only 19 of 271 completed flights left 15 minutes late or more, too few to say how often the time is made up.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 1491
The latest arrival of the period was on 7 December 2025, 4 hours 35 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 7 December 2025 | 4 hours 35 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 13 September 2025 | 2 hours 56 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 12 May 2026 | 2 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 May 2026 | 2 hours 24 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 30 August 2026 | 1 hour 51 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why UA 1491 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 80% of the 2,281 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 80%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
80% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,833 minutes out of 2,281, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 2,281 delay minutes reported on UA 1491.
Cancellations sit at 1.45% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.36%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.8% 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 ORD to ORF (89), EWR to IAH (32) and ORD to BOS (21), but none flew often enough under UA 1491 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to MCI to ORD only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 276 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 1491
For a booking, read UA 1491 as 83.8% on time with 1.45% cancelled over 276 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- MCI to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to MCI, the return direction
- United Airlines 303 on the same route70.9%
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- 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
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.