Flight number record

UA 1996

United Airlines · Chicago to San Juan

Route: ORD → SJU
Departs: 08:55
Flights: 365
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1996, check with United Airlines.

UA 1996 lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 45 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

On time

80.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 364 completed flights

Avg delay

44 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.27%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

3.6%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 1996 flies

UA 1996 flies ORD to SJU without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:55, used on 154 of 365 flights, with 08:49 (143 flights) and 08:52 (68 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 08:55154 flights42.2%
Departs 08:49143 flights39.2%
Departs 08:5268 flights18.6%

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 08:55 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and UA 1996 runs 3 points worse at 80.8%. 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 1996 next to ORD to SJU

Every carrier on ORD to SJU combined arrived on time 73.8% of the time across 1,403 flights, so UA 1996 is 7 points ahead of it. United flew 665 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 78.9% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight beats by 2 points.

UA 1996 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
UA 1996	365	80.8%	44 min	0.27%	B+
All United Airlines on ORD–SJU	665	78.9%	45 min	0.30%	B+
All carriers on ORD–SJU	1,403	73.8%	59 min	2.00%	C
United Airlines, whole network	821,041	79.0%	72 min	1.01%	B

Across the year

UA 1996 quarter by quarter

UA 1996 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 87.9% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 74.2%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 91 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 202592 flights82.6%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights78.3%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights74.2%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights87.9%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, UA 1996 ranged from 76.5% on Saturday to 86.5% on Wednesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 10 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.

Delay causes

Why UA 1996 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 43% of the 3,079 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.

National Airspace System
43%
Carrier
26%
Late-arriving aircraft
20%
Extreme weather
12%

Extreme weather accounts for 12% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the quarterly figures above are the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 3,079 delay minutes reported on UA 1996.

Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.6% 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 2,072 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.

Every one of the 365 flights under UA 1996 in the data flew ORD to SJU. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 365 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 1996

For a booking, read UA 1996 as 80.8% on time with 0.27% cancelled over 365 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures