Flight number record
UA 426
United Airlines · Detroit to Chicago
- Route
- DTW → ORD
- Departs
- 09:00
- Flights
- 345
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 426, check with United Airlines.
UA 426 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 345 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so UA 426 runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 66 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 341 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.16%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
7.3%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 345 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Schedule
When UA 426 flies
UA 426 flies DTW to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 09:00, used on 113 of 345 flights, with 11:00 (43 flights) and 08:50 (35 flights) next.
- Departs 09:00113 flights32.8%
- Departs 11:0043 flights12.5%
- Departs 08:5035 flights10.1%
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 09:00 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and UA 426 runs 13 points worse at 70.7%. 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 426 next to DTW to ORD
Every carrier on DTW to ORD combined arrived on time 72.2% of the time across 6,014 flights, so UA 426 is 2 points behind it. United flew 827 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 73.5% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight trails by 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 426thin sample | 345 | 70.7% | 62 min | 1.16% | C |
| All United Airlines on DTW–ORD | 827 | 73.5% | 76 min | 0.97% | C+ |
| All carriers on DTW–ORD | 6,014 | 72.2% | 92 min | 3.11% | C− |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 426 quarter by quarter
UA 426 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2026 at 85.5% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 46.7%, a swing of 39 points on roughly 69 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 202530 flights46.7%
- Oct–Dec 202578 flights61.8%
- Jan–Mar 202684 flights64.6%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights81.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights85.5%
Scale runs 40% to 90%.
By weekday, UA 426 did best on Thursday at 79.2% on time and worst on Sunday at 63.3%. Each day rests on about 49 flights, so a gap of 16 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 426 runs when it is late
The 100 late arrivals split 35 under half an hour, 40 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 25 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early43 flights12.6%
- Within 15 min198 flights58.1%
- 15–29 min late35 flights10.3%
- 30–59 min late40 flights11.7%
- 1–2 hours late14 flights4.1%
- 2+ hours late11 flights3.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 341 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
11 of 60 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. In the other direction, 51 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 426
The latest arrival of the period was on 27 July 2026, 9 hours 11 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The five worst days are spread across July, May, April, December and January, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 27 July 2026 | 9 hours 11 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 22 May 2026 | 7 hours 41 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 April 2026 | 4 hours | National Airspace System |
| 7 December 2025 | 3 hours 28 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 31 January 2026 | 3 hours 14 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why UA 426 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 59% of the 6,184 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
59% 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 3,646 minutes out of 6,184, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 6,184 delay minutes reported on UA 426.
Cancellations sit at 1.16% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
7.3% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The same number turns up on four other city pairs in the data, including ORD to MSY (56), ORD to IAD (36) and SLC to DEN (19), but none flew often enough under UA 426 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to DTW to ORD only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 345 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 426
For a booking, read UA 426 as 70.7% on time with 1.16% cancelled over 345 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to DTW, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1665 on the same route63.9%
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) 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
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.