Flight number record
UA 2418
United Airlines · Chicago to Philadelphia
- Route
- ORD → PHL
- Departs
- 07:25
- Flights
- 262
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 2418, check with United Airlines.
UA 2418 lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 262 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 2418's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 57 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 258 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.53%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
5.0%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 262 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 2418 flies
UA 2418 flies ORD to PHL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:25, used on 54 of 262 flights, with 07:35 (49 flights) and 08:45 (45 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 07:2554 flights20.6%
- Departs 07:3549 flights18.7%
- Departs 08:4545 flights17.2%
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 07:25 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and UA 2418 runs 6 points worse at 83.3%. 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 2418 next to ORD to PHL
Every carrier on ORD to PHL combined arrived on time 71.2% of the time across 4,918 flights, so UA 2418 is 12 points ahead of it. United flew 1,776 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 72.2% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight beats by 4 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 2418thin sample | 262 | 83.3% | 70 min | 1.53% | B |
| All United Airlines on ORD–PHL | 1,776 | 72.2% | 78 min | 1.30% | C |
| All carriers on ORD–PHL | 4,918 | 71.2% | 94 min | 2.85% | C |
| United Airlines, whole network | 821,041 | 79.0% | 72 min | 1.01% | B |
Across the year
UA 2418 quarter by quarter
UA 2418 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 92.3% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 78.0%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 66 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 flights92.3%
- Oct–Dec 202575 flights78.4%
- Jan–Mar 202652 flights78.0%
- Apr–Jun 202643 flights79.1%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 2418 did best on Wednesday at 92.7% on time and worst on Monday at 78.9%. Each day rests on about 37 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why UA 2418 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 3,023 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.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 3,023 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 3,023 delay minutes reported on UA 2418.
Cancellations sit at 1.53% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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.
The 678 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 seven other city pairs in the data, including IAH to SAN (35), ORD to SFO (24) and AUS to DEN (19), but none flew often enough under UA 2418 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to ORD to PHL only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 262 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 2418
For a booking, read UA 2418 as 83.3% on time with 1.53% cancelled over 262 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to PHL, every carrier and departure
- PHL to ORD, the return direction
- United Airlines 1776 on the same route58.3%
- United Airlines 2182 on the same route77.1%
- American Airlines 2840 on the same route68.5%
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) 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
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.