Flight number record

UA 747

United Airlines · Seattle to Chicago

Route: SEA → ORD
Departs: 23:59
Flights: 363
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 747, check with United Airlines.

UA 747 lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, UA 747's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 56 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

83.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 358 completed flights

Avg delay

90 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.55%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

7.3%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 363 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 747 flies

UA 747 flies SEA to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 23:59, used on 53 of 363 flights, with 10:53 (37 flights) and 07:00 (37 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 23:5953 flights14.6%
Departs 10:5337 flights10.2%
Departs 07:0037 flights10.2%

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 23:59 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and UA 747 runs 13 points better at 83.2%. 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 747 next to SEA to ORD

Every carrier on SEA to ORD combined arrived on time 75.0% of the time across 5,566 flights, so UA 747 is 8 points ahead of it. United flew 1,534 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.8% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, which this flight beats by 4 points.

UA 747 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
UA 747thin sample	363	83.2%	90 min	0.55%	B+
All United Airlines on SEA–ORD	1,534	79.8%	81 min	0.91%	B+
All carriers on SEA–ORD	5,566	75.0%	74 min	1.28%	B
United Airlines, whole network	821,041	79.0%	72 min	1.01%	B

Across the year

UA 747 quarter by quarter

UA 747 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 91.0% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 69.7%, a swing of 21 points on roughly 91 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 flights69.7%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights85.7%
Jan–Mar 202689 flights91.0%
Apr–Jun 202690 flights86.5%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, UA 747 did best on Tuesday at 86.8% on time and worst on Sunday at 74.5%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 12 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why UA 747 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 5,389 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
49%
National Airspace System
34%
Carrier
14%
Extreme weather
3%

49% 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 5,389 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 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 5,389 delay minutes reported on UA 747.

Cancellations are rare at 0.55%, 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

7.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 1,721 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

Every one of the 363 flights under UA 747 in the data flew SEA to ORD. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 363 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 747

For a booking, read UA 747 as 83.2% on time with 0.55% cancelled over 363 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures