Flight number record
UA 1946
United Airlines · Los Angeles to Chicago
- Route
- LAX → ORD
- Departs
- 08:15
- Flights
- 315
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 315 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 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 71 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 308 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.27%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
4.9%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 315 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
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 181 of 315 flights, with 08:33 (37 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 08:15181 flights57.5%
- Departs 08:3337 flights11.7%
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 08:15 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and UA 1946 runs level with that at 84.7%. 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 1946 next to LAX to ORD
Every carrier on LAX to ORD combined arrived on time 76.4% of the time across 6,964 flights, so UA 1946 is 8 points ahead of it. United flew 3,380 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 80.5% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight beats by 6 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1946thin sample | 315 | 84.7% | 68 min | 1.27% | B |
| All United Airlines on LAX–ORD | 3,380 | 80.5% | 67 min | 0.74% | B+ |
| All carriers on LAX–ORD | 6,964 | 76.4% | 86 min | 1.68% | B |
| United Airlines, whole network | 821,041 | 79.0% | 72 min | 1.01% | B |
Across the year
UA 1946 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter UA 1946 held fairly steady: 83.7% in Jul–Sep 2025, 86.5% in Oct–Dec 2025, 84.1% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 84.1% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 3 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202543 flights83.7%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights86.5%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights84.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights84.1%
Scale runs 75% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 1946 ranged from 79.5% on Monday to 91.1% on Wednesday. With about 45 flights behind each day, a spread of 12 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Delay causes
Why UA 1946 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 65% of the 3,180 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.
- 65%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 14%Late-arriving aircraft
65% 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 2,073 minutes out of 3,180, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 3,180 delay minutes reported on UA 1946.
Cancellations sit at 1.27% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.95%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.9% 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.
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 ten other city pairs in the data, including ORD to PIT (118), ORD to LGA (78) and ORD to RSW (71), 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. 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 1946
For a booking, read UA 1946 as 84.7% on time with 1.27% cancelled over 315 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to LAX, the return direction
- United Airlines 2487 on the same route67.1%
- United Airlines 2113 on the same route77.0%
- United Airlines 212 on the same route87.3%
- United Airlines 1069 on the same route62.9%
- Los Angeles International (LAX) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.