Carrier route record
UAABQ→ORD
United Airlines · Albuquerque to Chicago
- Flights
- 392
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 33%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on ABQ to ORD lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five 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 392 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on ABQ to ORD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 382 completed flights
Avg delay
96 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.79%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.3%
Every carrier on ABQ to ORD, 1,176 flights
These figures cover 392 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on ABQ to ORD
United flew 392 of the 1,176 flights on ABQ to ORD, about 33% of it. Its 79.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 88.1% to American at 67.5%. Four of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 59 | 88.1% | 55 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 317 | 87.7% | 65 min | 1.58% | A |
| United Airlines (this page) | 392 | 79.1% | 96 min | 1.79% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 109 | 72.6% | 56 min | 1.83% | C |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 299 | 67.5% | 108 min | 1.34% | C |
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 14 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am73 flights90.0%
- 11am–2pm304 flights76.4%
- 2pm–5pm15 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 76.4% on time against 90.0% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 304 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on ABQ to ORD through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025138 flights83.5%
- Oct–Dec 202588 flights90.7%
- Jan–Mar 202666 flights74.2%
- Apr–Jun 2026100 flights66.0%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 79.1% on time across 392 flights.
United on ABQ to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 90.7% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 66.0%, a swing of 25 points on roughly 98 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.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.4%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 55% of the 7,657 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.
- 55%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
55% 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 4,207 minutes out of 7,657, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 7,657 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.79% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.77%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.2% 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 1,118 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 return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.3% on time across 392 flights, 4 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 392 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 United on ABQ to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 392 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 79.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 382 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ABQ to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to ABQ, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ABQ to ORD87.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on ABQ to ORD72.6%
- American Airlines on ABQ to ORD67.5%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.