Flight number record

UA 1491

United Airlines · Kansas City to Chicago

Route: MCI → ORD
Departs: 08:00
Flights: 276
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1491, check with United Airlines.

UA 1491 earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 50 minutes. 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 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 70 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

84.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 272 completed flights

Avg delay

51 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.09%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

4.0%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 276 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

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 167 of 276 flights, with 07:30 (68 flights) and 07:53 (40 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 08:00167 flights60.5%
Departs 07:3068 flights24.6%
Departs 07:5340 flights14.5%

Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

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 84.1%, and UA 1491 runs level with that at 84.6%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

UA 1491 next to MCI to ORD

Every carrier on MCI to ORD combined arrived on time 74.7% of the time across 4,148 flights, so UA 1491 is 10 points ahead of it. United flew 1,434 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.5% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight beats by 6 points.

UA 1491 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
UA 1491thin sample	276	84.6%	51 min	1.09%	B
All United Airlines on MCI–ORD	1,434	76.5%	82 min	2.02%	B
All carriers on MCI–ORD	4,148	74.7%	97 min	2.80%	C
United Airlines, whole network	821,041	79.0%	72 min	1.01%	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 90.1% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 75.0%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 69 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 202592 flights90.1%
Oct–Dec 202540 flights75.0%
Jan–Mar 202682 flights80.0%
Apr–Jun 202662 flights88.5%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, UA 1491 did best on Tuesday at 92.5% on time and worst on Friday 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.

Delay causes

Why UA 1491 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 79% of the 2,138 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

National Airspace System
79%
Carrier
17%
Extreme weather
4%

79% 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 1,687 minutes out of 2,138, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 2,138 delay minutes reported on UA 1491.

Cancellations sit at 1.09% against a national 1.81%, 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 4.0% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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), ORD to DFW (63) and EWR to IAH (32), 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 84.6% on time with 1.09% cancelled over 276 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.

Where to go next

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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures