Flight number record
UA 561
United Airlines · Chicago to Kansas City
- Route
- ORD → MCI
- Departs
- 12:40
- Flights
- 340
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 561, check with United Airlines.
UA 561 lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 340 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
80.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 337 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.88%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
7.7%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 340 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
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Schedule
When UA 561 flies
UA 561 flies ORD to MCI without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 12:40, used on 172 of 340 flights, with 12:45 (142 flights) next.
- Departs 12:40172 flights50.6%
- Departs 12:45142 flights41.8%
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 12:40 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and UA 561 runs 2 points better at 80.4%. 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 561 next to ORD to MCI
Every carrier on ORD to MCI combined arrived on time 70.9% of the time across 4,283 flights, so UA 561 is 10 points ahead of it. United flew 1,504 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 71.2% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight beats by 2 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 561thin sample | 340 | 80.4% | 75 min | 0.88% | B+ |
| All United Airlines on ORD–MCI | 1,504 | 71.2% | 75 min | 1.60% | C |
| All carriers on ORD–MCI | 4,283 | 70.9% | 76 min | 2.61% | C |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 561 quarter by quarter
UA 561 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 90.0% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 75.6%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 68 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 flights90.0%
- Oct–Dec 202578 flights76.3%
- Jan–Mar 202683 flights75.6%
- Apr–Jun 202687 flights86.2%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights79.0%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
By weekday, UA 561 did best on Thursday at 87.5% on time and worst on Tuesday at 74.0%. Each day rests on about 49 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 561 runs when it is late
UA 561 often beats the schedule: 86 of 337 completed flights, 26%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 66 late arrivals split 18 under half an hour, 22 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 26 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early86 flights25.5%
- Within 15 min185 flights54.9%
- 15–29 min late18 flights5.3%
- 30–59 min late22 flights6.5%
- 1–2 hours late14 flights4.2%
- 2+ hours late12 flights3.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 337 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
9 of 61 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 15% of them. 14 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 561
The latest arrival of the period was on 7 December 2025, 6 hours 26 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 7 December 2025 | 6 hours 26 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 February 2026 | 4 hours 25 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 August 2026 | 4 hours 18 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 May 2026 | 3 hours 52 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 June 2026 | 3 hours 24 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why UA 561 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 4,965 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,965 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 4,965 delay minutes reported on UA 561.
Cancellations are rare at 0.88%, below the national 1.89% 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
7.7% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The same number turns up on seven other city pairs in the data, including PIT to ORD (85), LGA to ORD (24) and PBI to ORD (24), but none flew often enough under UA 561 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to ORD to MCI only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 340 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 561
For a booking, read UA 561 as 80.4% on time with 0.88% cancelled over 340 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to MCI, every carrier and departure
- MCI to ORD, the return direction
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) 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.