Flight number record
UA 786
United Airlines · Wichita to Chicago
- Route
- ICT → ORD
- Departs
- 07:30
- Flights
- 290
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 786, check with United Airlines.
UA 786 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 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 290 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 786's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 91 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 286 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.03%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
4.9%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 290 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 786 flies
UA 786 flies ICT to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:30, used on 184 of 290 flights, with 07:25 (73 flights) next.
- Departs 07:30184 flights63.4%
- Departs 07:2573 flights25.2%
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 07:30 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and UA 786 runs 3 points worse at 86.4%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
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Against the route
UA 786 next to ICT to ORD
Every carrier on ICT to ORD combined arrived on time 74.2% of the time across 2,191 flights, so UA 786 is 12 points ahead of it. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight beats by 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 786thin sample | 290 | 86.4% | 90 min | 1.03% | A |
| All United Airlines on ICT–ORDthin sample | 313 | 86.1% | 88 min | 0.96% | A+ |
| All carriers on ICT–ORD | 2,191 | 74.2% | 92 min | 3.24% | C− |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 786 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter UA 786 held fairly steady: 83.3% in Jul–Sep 2025, 84.6% in Oct–Dec 2025, 84.9% in Jan–Mar 2026, 92.5% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 89.7% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 9 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights83.3%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights84.6%
- Jan–Mar 202687 flights84.9%
- Apr–Jun 202640 flights92.5%
- Jul–Sep 202641 flights89.7%
Scale runs 75% to 100%.
By weekday, UA 786 did best on Friday at 95.1% on time and worst on Sunday at 79.5%. Each day rests on about 41 flights, so a gap of 16 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 786 runs when it is late
UA 786 often beats the schedule: 97 of 286 completed flights, 34%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 39 late arrivals split 16 under half an hour, 9 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 14 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early97 flights33.9%
- Within 15 min150 flights52.4%
- 15–29 min late16 flights5.6%
- 30–59 min late9 flights3.1%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights2.1%
- 2+ hours late8 flights2.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 286 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 22 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 2 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 19 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 786
The latest arrival of the period was on 30 December 2025, 14 hours 25 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 30 December 2025 | 14 hours 25 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 June 2026 | 4 hours 31 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 November 2025 | 4 hours 24 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 14 January 2026 | 3 hours 51 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 8 June 2026 | 3 hours 46 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why UA 786 runs late
Carrier accounts for 52% of the 3,497 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Carrier
- 43%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
43% 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 1,508 minutes out of 3,497, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 3,497 delay minutes reported on UA 786.
Cancellations sit at 1.03% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.34%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 588 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.
UA 786 is not only a ICT to ORD flight. It also flew ORD to BTV (274 flights, 80.8% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 290 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.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD to BTVthin sample | 274 | 80.8% | 71 min | 0.36% | B+ |
What to do with this
Booking UA 786
For a booking, UA 786 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 86.4% on time and 1.03% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- ICT to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to ICT, the return direction
- 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.