Flight number record
UA 1616
United Airlines · Nashville to Chicago
- Route
- BNA → ORD
- Departs
- 12:49
- Flights
- 253
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1616, check with United Airlines.
UA 1616 lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 253 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 246 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.98%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.9%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 253 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When UA 1616 flies
UA 1616 flies BNA to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 12:49, used on 82 of 253 flights, with 12:50 (52 flights) next.
- Departs 12:4982 flights32.4%
- Departs 12:5052 flights20.6%
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 12:49 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and UA 1616 runs level with that at 78.0%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
UA 1616 next to BNA to ORD
Every carrier on BNA to ORD combined arrived on time 70.9% of the time across 5,045 flights, so UA 1616 is 7 points ahead of it. United flew 1,509 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 71.7% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, close to this flight's figure.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1616thin sample | 253 | 78.0% | 82 min | 1.98% | B |
| All United Airlines on BNA–ORD | 1,509 | 71.7% | 97 min | 2.19% | C |
| All carriers on BNA–ORD | 5,045 | 70.9% | 96 min | 2.91% | C |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 1616 quarter by quarter
UA 1616 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 70.1%, a swing of 23 points on roughly 63 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 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202568 flights70.1%
- Jan–Mar 20263 flights—
- Apr–Jun 202690 flights80.9%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights74.6%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 1616 did best on Monday at 85.7% on time and worst on Thursday at 69.4%. Each day rests on about 36 flights, so a gap of 16 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 1616 runs when it is late
The 54 late arrivals split 20 under half an hour, 12 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 22 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early58 flights23.6%
- Within 15 min134 flights54.5%
- 15–29 min late20 flights8.1%
- 30–59 min late12 flights4.9%
- 1–2 hours late8 flights3.3%
- 2+ hours late14 flights5.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 246 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 39 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 3 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 18 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 ORD.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 1616
The latest arrival of the period was on 3 July 2026, 6 hours 8 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 3 July 2026 | 6 hours 8 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 9 August 2026 | 5 hours 59 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 11 August 2026 | 5 hours 14 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 11 June 2026 | 3 hours 37 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 17 June 2026 | 3 hours 11 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why UA 1616 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 77% of the 4,408 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 77%National Airspace System
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Carrier
77% 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 3,378 minutes out of 4,408, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 4,408 delay minutes reported on UA 1616.
Cancellations sit at 1.98% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.79%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The same number turns up on ten other city pairs in the data, including EWR to BNA (81), ORD to RDU (52) and ORD to SNA (31), but none flew often enough under UA 1616 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to BNA to ORD only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 253 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 1616
For a booking, read UA 1616 as 78.0% on time with 1.98% cancelled over 253 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- BNA to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to BNA, the return direction
- Nashville International (BNA) 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.