Flight number record
UA 1878
United Airlines · Austin to Chicago
- Route
- AUS → ORD
- Departs
- 07:00
- Flights
- 314
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1878, check with United Airlines.
UA 1878 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 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 314 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 1878's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 103 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 306 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.91%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
3.3%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 314 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 1878 flies
UA 1878 flies AUS to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:00, used on 200 of 314 flights, with 06:30 (54 flights) and 06:40 (41 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 07:00200 flights63.7%
- Departs 06:3054 flights17.2%
- Departs 06:4041 flights13.1%
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 07:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and UA 1878 runs level with that at 87.9%. 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 1878 next to AUS to ORD
Every carrier on AUS to ORD combined arrived on time 72.1% of the time across 3,166 flights, so UA 1878 is 16 points ahead of it. United flew 1,470 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 74.9% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight beats by 9 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1878thin sample | 314 | 87.9% | 70 min | 1.91% | A |
| All United Airlines on AUS–ORD | 1,470 | 74.9% | 80 min | 1.02% | C |
| All carriers on AUS–ORD | 3,166 | 72.1% | 90 min | 2.15% | C |
| United Airlines, whole network | 821,041 | 79.0% | 72 min | 1.01% | B |
Across the year
UA 1878 quarter by quarter
UA 1878 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.5% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 82.9%, a swing of 11 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 202577 flights93.5%
- Oct–Dec 202577 flights82.9%
- Jan–Mar 202688 flights85.5%
- Apr–Jun 202672 flights90.0%
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 1878 did best on Friday at 95.8% on time and worst on Sunday at 82.4%. Each day rests on about 45 flights, so a gap of 13 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why UA 1878 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 53% of the 2,576 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.
- 53%Carrier
- 42%National Airspace System
- 6%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,354 of the 2,576 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,576 delay minutes reported on UA 1878.
Cancellations sit at 1.91% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.64%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.3% 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 977 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The same number turns up on eight other city pairs in the data, including ORD to CLE (53), ORD to SFO (49) and ORD to OMA (21), but none flew often enough under UA 1878 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to AUS to ORD only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 314 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 1878
For a booking, read UA 1878 as 87.9% on time with 1.91% cancelled over 314 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- AUS to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to AUS, the return direction
- American Airlines 1726 on the same route80.3%
- United Airlines 1990 on the same route59.4%
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) 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
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.