Flight number record
UA 609
United Airlines · Cleveland to Chicago
- Route
- CLE → ORD
- Departs
- 11:00
- Flights
- 276
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 609, check with United Airlines.
UA 609 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 8 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 276 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 609's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 80 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 273 completed flights
Avg delay
102 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.09%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.5%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 276 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 609 flies
UA 609 flies CLE to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 11:00, used on 116 of 276 flights, with 10:53 (68 flights) and 10:55 (40 flights) next.
- Departs 11:00116 flights42.0%
- Departs 10:5368 flights24.6%
- Departs 10:5540 flights14.5%
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 11:00 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and UA 609 runs 7 points better at 85.3%. 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 609 next to CLE to ORD
Every carrier on CLE to ORD combined arrived on time 74.5% of the time across 4,895 flights, so UA 609 is 11 points ahead of it. United flew 2,181 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 78.8%, which this flight beats by 7 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 609thin sample | 276 | 85.3% | 102 min | 1.09% | A |
| All United Airlines on CLE–ORD | 2,181 | 75.6% | 79 min | 1.47% | B |
| All carriers on CLE–ORD | 4,895 | 74.5% | 84 min | 3.25% | C− |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 609 quarter by quarter
UA 609 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 89.4% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 78.3%, a swing of 11 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 20256 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202574 flights84.9%
- Jan–Mar 202649 flights85.7%
- Apr–Jun 202685 flights89.4%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights78.3%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 609 did best on Wednesday at 92.3% on time and worst on Sunday at 78.0%. Each day rests on about 39 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 609 runs when it is late
UA 609 often beats the schedule: 87 of 273 completed flights, 32%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 40 late arrivals split 12 under half an hour, 13 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 15 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early87 flights31.9%
- Within 15 min146 flights53.5%
- 15–29 min late12 flights4.4%
- 30–59 min late13 flights4.8%
- 1–2 hours late4 flights1.5%
- 2+ hours late11 flights4.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 273 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 38 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 4 made it up before arrival. 6 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 609
The latest arrival of the period was on 28 August 2026, 11 hours 10 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as national airspace system delay.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 28 August 2026 | 11 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 May 2026 | 10 hours 13 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 6 March 2026 | 4 hours 34 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 11 August 2026 | 3 hours 32 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 June 2026 | 3 hours 31 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why UA 609 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 53% of the 4,096 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
53% 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 2,161 minutes out of 4,096, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 4,096 delay minutes reported on UA 609.
Cancellations sit at 1.09% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.5% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The same number turns up on six other city pairs in the data, including ORD to MCO (82), ORD to DEN (48) and EWR to RDU (37), but none flew often enough under UA 609 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to CLE to ORD only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 276 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 609
For a booking, UA 609 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 85.3% on time and 1.09% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- CLE to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to CLE, the return direction
- United Airlines 1673 on the same route52.9%
- United Airlines 490 on the same route84.5%
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) 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
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.