Carrier route record
UAAUS→ORD
United Airlines · Austin to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,470
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 46%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on AUS to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,470 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on AUS 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
74.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,443 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.02%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.1%
Every carrier on AUS to ORD, 3,166 flights
These figures cover 1,470 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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 AUS to ORD
United flew 1,470 of the 3,166 flights on AUS to ORD, about 46% of it. Its 74.9% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 74.9% to Frontier at 65.1%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,470 | 74.9% | 80 min | 1.02% | C |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 86 | 72.6% | 62 min | 2.33% | C |
| American Airlines | 1,190 | 69.8% | 105 min | 3.11% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 95 | 69.7% | 71 min | 6.32% | C− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 207 | 68.8% | 56 min | 0.48% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 118 | 65.1% | 141 min | 5.93% | C− |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on AUS 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 30 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–8am314 flights87.9%
- 8am–11am328 flights85.6%
- 11am–2pm293 flights75.9%
- 2pm–5pm254 flights62.9%
- 5pm–8pm279 flights58.3%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.3% on time, against 87.9% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 328 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on AUS to ORD through the year
Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 64.2%. August is the strongest month at 85.1%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 21 points. June was the busiest month here, with 146 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 71.9%. 8 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 29,000 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
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 1%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 16,000 minutes out of 29,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 29,037 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.02% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.82%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.9% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 977 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 77.9% on time across 1,471 flights, 3 points above 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,470 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking United on AUS to ORD
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. August runs 85.1% on time and November 64.2%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of November before you think about anything else. 1,443 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- AUS to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to AUS, the return leg
- American Airlines on AUS to ORD69.8%
- Southwest Airlines on AUS to ORD68.8%
- Frontier Airlines on AUS to ORD65.1%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- 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.