Flight number record
UA 516
United Airlines · Atlanta to Chicago
- Route
- ATL → ORD
- Departs
- 15:40
- Flights
- 362
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 516, check with United Airlines.
UA 516 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 2.1 hours behind schedule. That rests on 362 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so UA 516 runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 65 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 356 completed flights
Avg delay
125 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
15.4%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 362 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When UA 516 flies
UA 516 flies ATL to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 15:40, used on 82 of 362 flights, with 15:30 (81 flights) and 15:37 (48 flights) next.
- Departs 15:4082 flights22.7%
- Departs 15:3081 flights22.4%
- Departs 15:3748 flights13.3%
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 15:40 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and UA 516 runs level with that at 70.8%. 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 516 next to ATL to ORD
Every carrier on ATL to ORD combined arrived on time 69.0% of the time across 6,493 flights, so UA 516 is 2 points ahead of it. United flew 1,717 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 72.7% 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 516thin sample | 362 | 70.8% | 125 min | 1.10% | C |
| All United Airlines on ATL–ORD | 1,717 | 72.7% | 92 min | 1.81% | C |
| All carriers on ATL–ORD | 6,493 | 69.0% | 83 min | 2.40% | C |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 516 quarter by quarter
UA 516 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 86.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 57.6%, a swing of 29 points on roughly 72 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 flights86.7%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights72.2%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights77.3%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights66.3%
- Jul–Sep 202660 flights57.6%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
By weekday, UA 516 did best on Saturday at 85.7% on time and worst on Friday at 57.7%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 28 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 516 runs when it is late
When UA 516 is late it tends to be very late: 55 of its 104 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 38 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early72 flights20.2%
- Within 15 min180 flights50.6%
- 15–29 min late25 flights7.0%
- 30–59 min late24 flights6.7%
- 1–2 hours late17 flights4.8%
- 2+ hours late38 flights10.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 356 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 85 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 8 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 27 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 516
The latest arrival of the period was on 27 April 2026, 19 hours 38 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across April, November, July and March, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 27 April 2026 | 19 hours 38 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 November 2025 | 18 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 July 2026 | 7 hours 18 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 July 2026 | 6 hours 59 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 13 March 2026 | 5 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why UA 516 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 43% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%National Airspace System
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
34% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 34 to one. The split is drawn from 12,996 delay minutes reported on UA 516.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.55%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
15.4% 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 606 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 six other city pairs in the data, including ORD to BDL (174), ORD to TVC (52) and ORD to SNA (47), but none flew often enough under UA 516 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to ATL to ORD only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 362 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 516
For a booking, UA 516 is a flight to put a long connection behind. 15.4% 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
- ATL to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2738 on the same route57.6%
- Delta Air Lines 1477 on the same route72.9%
- Delta Air Lines 1147 on the same route79.0%
- Delta Air Lines 2879 on the same route45.6%
- Frontier Airlines 1441 on the same route72.7%
- Delta Air Lines 1199 on the same route70.6%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.