Flight number record
UA 1779
United Airlines · San Diego to Chicago
- Route
- SAN → ORD
- Departs
- 14:11
- Flights
- 315
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1779, check with United Airlines.
UA 1779 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 315 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so UA 1779 runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 89 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 313 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
9.3%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 315 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Schedule
When UA 1779 flies
UA 1779 flies SAN to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 14:11, used on 148 of 315 flights, with 14:16 (52 flights) and 14:10 (50 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 14:11148 flights47.0%
- Departs 14:1652 flights16.5%
- Departs 14:1050 flights15.9%
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 14:11 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 72.4%, and UA 1779 runs 4 points worse at 68.7%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
Against the route
UA 1779 next to SAN to ORD
Every carrier on SAN to ORD combined arrived on time 78.0% of the time across 3,807 flights, so UA 1779 is 9 points behind it. United flew 1,672 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 82.0% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight trails by 10 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1779thin sample | 315 | 68.7% | 58 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| All United Airlines on SAN–ORD | 1,672 | 82.0% | 76 min | 0.54% | B+ |
| All carriers on SAN–ORD | 3,807 | 78.0% | 81 min | 1.34% | B |
| United Airlines, whole network | 821,041 | 79.0% | 72 min | 1.01% | B |
Across the year
UA 1779 quarter by quarter
UA 1779 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 79.1% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 66.7%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 79 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 202543 flights79.1%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights67.0%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights67.4%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights66.7%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 1779 did best on Tuesday at 86.7% on time and worst on Sunday at 48.9%. Each day rests on about 45 flights, so a gap of 38 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why UA 1779 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 59% of the 5,686 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.
- 59%National Airspace System
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%Carrier
59% 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 3,374 minutes out of 5,686, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 5,686 delay minutes reported on UA 1779.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 1,723 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The same number turns up on two other city pairs in the data, including ORD to BOS (174) and LAS to ORD (49), but none flew often enough under UA 1779 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to SAN to ORD only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 315 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 1779
For a booking, UA 1779 is one of the weaker ways to fly SAN to ORD: 9 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.
Related
Where to go next
- SAN to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to SAN, the return direction
- United Airlines 2486 on the same route82.8%
- United Airlines 2343 on the same route86.1%
- American Airlines 2131 on the same route63.2%
- San Diego International (SAN) 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
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.