Flight number record
UA 546
United Airlines · Newark to Chicago
- Route
- EWR → ORD
- Departs
- 19:45
- Flights
- 299
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 546, check with United Airlines.
UA 546 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 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 299 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so UA 546 runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 72 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 291 completed flights
Avg delay
100 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.68%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
15.5%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 299 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Schedule
When UA 546 flies
UA 546 flies EWR to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 19:45, used on 95 of 299 flights, with 20:19 (41 flights) and 20:15 (34 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 19:4595 flights31.8%
- Departs 20:1941 flights13.7%
- Departs 20:1534 flights11.4%
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 19:45 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and UA 546 runs 2 points better at 70.4%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
Against the route
UA 546 next to EWR to ORD
Every carrier on EWR to ORD combined arrived on time 71.5% of the time across 6,039 flights, so UA 546 is about level with it. United flew 4,389 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 71.1% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight trails by 9 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 546thin sample | 299 | 70.4% | 100 min | 2.68% | C |
| All United Airlines on EWR–ORD | 4,389 | 71.1% | 76 min | 2.26% | C |
| All carriers on EWR–ORD | 6,039 | 71.5% | 81 min | 3.33% | C− |
| United Airlines, whole network | 821,041 | 79.0% | 72 min | 1.01% | B |
Across the year
UA 546 quarter by quarter
UA 546 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 76.4% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 62.2%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 75 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 202557 flights73.7%
- Oct–Dec 202575 flights62.2%
- Jan–Mar 202676 flights76.4%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights70.5%
Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 546 did best on Tuesday at 82.6% on time and worst on Sunday at 59.5%. Each day rests on about 43 flights, so a gap of 23 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why UA 546 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 46% of the 8,636 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.
- 46%National Airspace System
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
39% 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 8,636 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 8,636 delay minutes reported on UA 546.
Cancellations run at 2.68%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 15.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 719 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 LAS to EWR (141), SAV to EWR (39) and BOS to ORD (31), but none flew often enough under UA 546 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to EWR to ORD only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 299 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 546
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on UA 546: 2.68% of its 299 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs close to two hours, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to EWR, the return direction
- United Airlines 1525 on the same route79.8%
- United Airlines 1875 on the same route77.4%
- United Airlines 661 on the same route50.2%
- United Airlines 254 on the same route40.1%
- United Airlines 2164 on the same route85.4%
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.