Flight number record
UA 490
United Airlines · Chicago to San Antonio
- Route
- ORD → SAT
- Departs
- 08:45
- Flights
- 293
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 490, check with United Airlines.
UA 490 earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 55 minutes. That rests on 293 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 490's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 90 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 292 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.34%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
3.8%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 293 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 490 flies
UA 490 flies ORD to SAT without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:45, used on 49 of 293 flights, with 09:15 (49 flights) and 09:05 (41 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 08:4549 flights16.7%
- Departs 09:1549 flights16.7%
- Departs 09:0541 flights14.0%
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 08:45 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and UA 490 runs 3 points better at 86.6%. 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 490 next to ORD to SAT
Every carrier on ORD to SAT combined arrived on time 74.5% of the time across 1,966 flights, so UA 490 is 12 points ahead of it. United flew 833 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 75.6% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight beats by 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 490thin sample | 293 | 86.6% | 54 min | 0.34% | A+ |
| All United Airlines on ORD–SAT | 833 | 75.6% | 74 min | 1.08% | B |
| All carriers on ORD–SAT | 1,966 | 74.5% | 70 min | 2.03% | C |
| United Airlines, whole network | 821,041 | 79.0% | 72 min | 1.01% | B |
Across the year
UA 490 quarter by quarter
UA 490 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 92.3% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 76.8%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 73 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 202555 flights87.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights86.7%
- Apr–Jun 202656 flights76.8%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 490 did best on Tuesday at 93.0% on time and worst on Friday at 78.6%. Each day rests on about 42 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why UA 490 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 44% of the 2,122 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.
- 44%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
44% 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 937 minutes out of 2,122, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 2,122 delay minutes reported on UA 490.
Cancellations are rare at 0.34%, 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 3.8% 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.
The 1,041 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 five other city pairs in the data, including CLE to ORD (205), SAT to DEN (105) and ORD to SNA (35), but none flew often enough under UA 490 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to ORD to SAT only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 293 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 490
For a booking, UA 490 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 86.6% on time and 0.34% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to SAT, every carrier and departure
- SAT to ORD, the return direction
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- San Antonio International (SAT) 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.