Flight number record
UA 787
United Airlines · Houston to Chicago
- Route
- IAH → ORD
- Departs
- 19:50
- Flights
- 363
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 787, check with United Airlines.
UA 787 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so UA 787 runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 80 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 358 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.83%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
13.1%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 363 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.1% 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 787 flies
UA 787 flies IAH to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 19:50, used on 68 of 363 flights, with 20:25 (61 flights) and 18:36 (37 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 19:5068 flights18.7%
- Departs 20:2561 flights16.8%
- Departs 18:3637 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 19:50 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and UA 787 runs level with that at 69.6%. 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 787 next to IAH to ORD
Every carrier on IAH to ORD combined arrived on time 74.8% of the time across 6,080 flights, so UA 787 is 5 points behind it. United flew 4,007 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 78.2% 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 787thin sample | 363 | 69.6% | 86 min | 0.83% | C+ |
| All United Airlines on IAH–ORD | 4,007 | 78.2% | 70 min | 0.60% | B+ |
| All carriers on IAH–ORD | 6,080 | 74.8% | 82 min | 1.48% | C |
| United Airlines, whole network | 821,041 | 79.0% | 72 min | 1.01% | B |
Across the year
UA 787 quarter by quarter
UA 787 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 76.9% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 59.1%, a swing of 18 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 flights71.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights76.9%
- Jan–Mar 202688 flights59.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights70.1%
Scale runs 50% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 787 did best on Wednesday at 75.0% on time and worst on Sunday at 60.8%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why UA 787 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 42% of the 9,375 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.
- 42%National Airspace System
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
42% 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 3,956 minutes out of 9,375, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 9,375 delay minutes reported on UA 787.
Cancellations are rare at 0.83%, 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.1% 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 925 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 MCO to IAH (37), SFO to IAH (32) and LAX to IAH (31), but none flew often enough under UA 787 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to IAH to ORD only.
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 787
For a booking, UA 787 is a flight to put a long connection behind. 13.1% of its completed flights arrived an hour or more late, which a short layover will not absorb. If the onward flight is on a separate ticket, the risk sits with you.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to IAH, the return direction
- United Airlines 2616 on the same route87.5%
- United Airlines 2124 on the same route85.3%
- United Airlines 2182 on the same route88.8%
- United Airlines 2417 on the same route75.5%
- United Airlines 1617 on the same route90.3%
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) 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
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.