Flight number record
UA 2738
United Airlines · Fort Myers to Chicago
- Route
- RSW → ORD
- Departs
- 16:27
- Flights
- 272
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 2738, check with United Airlines.
UA 2738 draws a D. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is a little over an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 272 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so UA 2738 runs 13 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 131 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
64.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 268 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
13.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 272 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When UA 2738 flies
UA 2738 flies RSW to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 16:27, used on 54 of 272 flights, with 16:25 (39 flights) and 16:38 (36 flights) next.
- Departs 16:2754 flights19.9%
- Departs 16:2539 flights14.3%
- Departs 16:3836 flights13.2%
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 16:27 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and UA 2738 runs 8 points worse at 64.2%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
UA 2738 next to RSW to ORD
Every carrier on RSW to ORD combined arrived on time 76.4% of the time across 3,238 flights, so UA 2738 is 12 points behind it. United flew 1,615 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 80.0% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight trails by 15 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 2738thin sample | 272 | 64.2% | 72 min | 1.10% | D |
| All United Airlines on RSW–ORD | 1,615 | 80.0% | 75 min | 0.80% | B+ |
| All carriers on RSW–ORD | 3,238 | 76.4% | 84 min | 1.67% | B |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 2738 quarter by quarter
UA 2738 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 68.2% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 57.3%, a swing of 11 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 20256 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights57.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights67.0%
- Apr–Jun 202685 flights68.2%
Scale runs 50% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 2738 did best on Saturday at 73.7% on time and worst on Sunday at 57.9%. Each day rests on about 39 flights, so a gap of 16 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 2738 runs when it is late
The 96 late arrivals split 34 under half an hour, 27 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 35 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early32 flights11.9%
- Within 15 min140 flights52.2%
- 15–29 min late34 flights12.7%
- 30–59 min late27 flights10.1%
- 1–2 hours late19 flights7.1%
- 2+ hours late16 flights6.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 268 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 46 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 2 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 52 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 2738
The latest arrival of the period was on 6 March 2026, 6 hours 3 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.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 6 March 2026 | 6 hours 3 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 2 April 2026 | 5 hours 21 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 19 December 2025 | 5 hours 8 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 October 2025 | 4 hours 40 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 11 June 2026 | 4 hours 34 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why UA 2738 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 70% of the 6,866 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 70%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
70% 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 4,796 minutes out of 6,866, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 6,866 delay minutes reported on UA 2738.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.37%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
13.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,120 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.
The same number turns up on five other city pairs in the data, including ORD to PDX (46), ORD to ONT (27) and GRR to ORD (24), but none flew often enough under UA 2738 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to RSW to ORD only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 272 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 2738
For a booking, UA 2738 is a flight to put a long connection behind. 13.1% of its completed flights arrived an hour or more late, which a short layover will not absorb. If the onward flight is on a separate ticket, the risk sits with you.
Related
Where to go next
- RSW to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to RSW, the return direction
- United Airlines 2494 on the same route87.1%
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) 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
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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 ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.