Carrier route record

UACLE→ORD

United Airlines · Cleveland to Chicago

Flights: 2,181
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 45%
Carriers: 5

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.

United on CLE 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 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,181 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 587 at 76.9% on time.

Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 76.9% on time across 587 flights.

On time

75.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,149 completed flights

Avg delay

79 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.47%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

74.5%

Every carrier on CLE to ORD, 4,895 flights

These figures cover 2,181 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.

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Carrier by carrier

United against every carrier on CLE to ORD

United flew 2,181 of the 4,895 flights on CLE to ORD, about 45% of it. Its 75.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 76.9% to SkyWest at 69.2%.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 76.9% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 69.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 854 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on CLE to ORD
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airways	587	76.9%	75 min	6.64%	B−
United Airlines (this page)	2,181	75.6%	79 min	1.47%	B
American Airlines	395	75.0%	109 min	3.54%	B−
Envoy Air	878	74.9%	78 min	4.33%	C−
SkyWest Airlines	854	69.2%	97 min	4.22%	C−

Republic Airways cancels 6.6% 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.

Flight by flight

United flight numbers on CLE to ORD

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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 32 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am437 flights87.6%
8am–11am370 flights80.5%
11am–2pm380 flights83.5%
2pm–5pm470 flights75.1%
5pm–8pm507 flights55.7%
8pm–5am17 flights—

Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.7% on time, against 87.6% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 507 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

United on CLE to ORD through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, August worst

August is the worst month at 69.6% on time, 13 points below September, the best at 83.0%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. September was the busiest month here, with 229 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.3%, a spread of 9 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late United on CLE to ORD runs when it is late

The 525 late arrivals split 220 under half an hour, 118 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 187 an hour or more.

15+ min early367 flights17.1%
Within 15 min1,257 flights58.5%
15–29 min late220 flights10.2%
30–59 min late118 flights5.5%
1–2 hours late87 flights4.0%
2+ hours late100 flights4.7%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 2,149 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 321 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 33 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 237 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at ORD.

The worst days

Worst days for United on CLE to ORD

The latest arrival of the period was on 2 April 2026, 16 hours 56 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.

The latest arrivals of United on CLE to ORD in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
2 April 2026	16 hours 56 minutes	National Airspace System
27 July 2026	13 hours 6 minutes	National Airspace System
18 May 2026	11 hours 24 minutes	National Airspace System
28 August 2026	11 hours 10 minutes	Carrier
18 May 2026	10 hours 13 minutes	National Airspace System

Delay causes

Why United runs late on this route

National Airspace System accounts for 65% of the 41,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

National Airspace System
65%
Late-arriving aircraft
23%
Carrier
11%
Extreme weather
1%

65% 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 27,000 minutes out of 41,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 41,223 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.47% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

8.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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 316 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 71.8% on time across 2,182 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.

The sample behind these figures is 2,181 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 CLE to ORD

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 83.0% on time and August 69.6%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,149 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures