Carrier route record
UAALB→ORD
United Airlines · Albany to Chicago
- Flights
- 756
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 33%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on ALB to ORD lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four 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 756 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 756 at 81.1% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on ALB 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
76.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 742 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.85%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.6%
Every carrier on ALB to ORD, 2,303 flights
These figures cover 756 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on ALB to ORD
United flew 756 of the 2,303 flights on ALB to ORD, about 33% of it. Its 76.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 81.1% to Republic at 71.8%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 81.1% of the time; Republic Airways manages 71.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 587 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 756 | 81.1% | 83 min | 2.12% | B |
| United Airlines (this page) | 756 | 76.4% | 95 min | 1.85% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 204 | 73.9% | 82 min | 2.45% | C |
| Republic Airways | 587 | 71.8% | 75 min | 4.43% | C− |
Republic Airways cancels 4.4% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on ALB to ORD
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 42 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am346 flights83.9%
- 8am–11am48 flights91.5%
- 11am–2pm142 flights85.8%
- 2pm–5pm144 flights50.0%
- 5pm–8pm76 flights64.4%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.5% of the time, against 50.0% for the afternoon window. That is 42 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 346 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on ALB to ORD through the year
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 62.5%. January is the strongest month at 90.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 28 points. May was the busiest month here, with 103 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 71.0%. 12 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 54% of the 17,000 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.
- 54%National Airspace System
- 27%Carrier
- 10%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%Extreme weather
54% 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 9,032 minutes out of 17,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 16,698 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.7% 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.
The 723 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 runs 73.7% on time across 756 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 756 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 ALB to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 756 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 76.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 742 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ALB to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to ALB, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ALB to ORD81.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on ALB to ORD73.9%
- Republic Airways on ALB to ORD71.8%
- 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
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.