Carrier route record
UACID→ORD
United Airlines · Cedar Rapids to Chicago
- Flights
- 457
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 17%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on CID to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 457 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 965 at 75.8% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on CID 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
75.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 447 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.19%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.1%
Every carrier on CID to ORD, 2,715 flights
These figures cover 457 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% 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.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on CID to ORD
United flew 457 of the 2,715 flights on CID to ORD, about 17% of it. Its 75.4% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 86.7% to SkyWest at 65.6%. Two 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 75.8% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 65.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 812 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 126 | 86.7% | 58 min | 4.76% | A− |
| Envoy Air | 965 | 75.8% | 70 min | 2.69% | B |
| United Airlines (this page) | 457 | 75.4% | 78 min | 2.19% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 354 | 66.9% | 79 min | 6.21% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 812 | 65.6% | 115 min | 4.56% | C− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 4.6% 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.
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 15 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am66 flights87.7%
- 8am–11am357 flights73.0%
- 11am–2pm34 flights76.5%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.7% of the time, against 73.0% for the morning window. That is 15 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 357 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on CID to ORD through the year
January is the weak month at 70.0% on time, against 87.1% in August. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. June was the busiest month here, with 75 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.8%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 8,536 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Extreme weather
- 32%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 12%Late-arriving aircraft
Extreme weather accounts for 36% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 5.7 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 8,536 reported delay minutes.
32% 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 2,767 minutes out of 8,536, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 2.19% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.1% 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.
At 196 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 63.4% on time across 456 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 457 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 CID to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 457 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 75.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 447 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CID to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to CID, the return leg
- American Airlines on CID to ORD86.7%
- Envoy Air on CID to ORD75.8%
- Republic Airways on CID to ORD66.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on CID to ORD65.6%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.