Flight number record

UA 1946

United Airlines · Los Angeles to Chicago

Route: LAX → ORD
Departs: 08:15
Flights: 364
Period: September 2025 to August 2026

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1946, check with United Airlines.

UA 1946 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 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, UA 1946's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 72 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

84.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 355 completed flights

Avg delay

73 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.37%

National rate is 1.89%

1 hour+ late

5.9%

National rate is 8.3%

These figures cover 364 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 1946 flies

UA 1946 flies LAX to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:15, used on 230 of 364 flights, with 08:33 (37 flights) next.

Departs 08:15230 flights63.2%
Departs 08:3337 flights10.2%

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 08:15 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and UA 1946 runs level with that at 84.5%. 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 1946 next to LAX to ORD

Every carrier on LAX to ORD combined arrived on time 76.4% of the time across 7,119 flights, so UA 1946 is 8 points ahead of it. United flew 3,414 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.9% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight beats by 6 points.

UA 1946 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
UA 1946thin sample	364	84.5%	73 min	1.37%	B
All United Airlines on LAX–ORD	3,414	79.9%	69 min	0.70%	B+
All carriers on LAX–ORD	7,119	76.4%	84 min	1.39%	B
United Airlines, whole network	830,825	78.8%	73 min	1.02%	B

Across the year

UA 1946 quarter by quarter

Quarter by quarter UA 1946 held fairly steady: 86.7% in Jul–Sep 2025, 86.5% in Oct–Dec 2025, 84.1% in Jan–Mar 2026, 84.1% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 81.7% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 5 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Jul–Sep 202530 flights86.7%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights86.5%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights84.1%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights84.1%
Jul–Sep 202662 flights81.7%

Scale runs 75% to 90%.

By weekday, UA 1946 did best on Wednesday at 90.4% on time and worst on Sunday at 78.4%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 12 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Arrival by arrival

How late UA 1946 runs when it is late

UA 1946 often beats the schedule: 130 of 355 completed flights, 37%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 55 late arrivals split 26 under half an hour, 8 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 21 an hour or more.

15+ min early130 flights36.6%
Within 15 min170 flights47.9%
15–29 min late26 flights7.3%
30–59 min late8 flights2.3%
1–2 hours late11 flights3.1%
2+ hours late10 flights2.8%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 355 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

7 of 33 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. In the other direction, 29 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 1946

The latest arrival of the period was on 29 November 2025, 8 hours 39 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.

The latest arrivals of UA 1946 in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
29 November 2025	8 hours 39 minutes	National Airspace System
15 March 2026	6 hours 9 minutes	National Airspace System
12 May 2026	4 hours 31 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
6 March 2026	3 hours 17 minutes	National Airspace System
10 December 2025	2 hours 56 minutes	Carrier

Delay causes

Why UA 1946 runs late

National Airspace System accounts for 57% of the 4,018 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

National Airspace System
57%
Late-arriving aircraft
24%
Carrier
19%

57% 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 2,296 minutes out of 4,018, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 4,018 delay minutes reported on UA 1946.

Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.10%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

5.9% 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.

At 1,744 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 eight other city pairs in the data, including ORD to PIT (179), ORD to RSW (71) and ORD to BUF (37), but none flew often enough under UA 1946 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to LAX to ORD only.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 364 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 1946

For a booking, read UA 1946 as 84.5% on time with 1.37% cancelled over 364 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures