Carrier route record
UADSM→ORD
United Airlines · Des Moines to Chicago
- Flights
- 943
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 28%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on DSM 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, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 943 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 565 at 77.9% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 77.9% on time across 565 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 923 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.70%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.1%
Every carrier on DSM to ORD, 3,403 flights
These figures cover 943 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 DSM to ORD
United flew 943 of the 3,403 flights on DSM to ORD, about 28% of it. Its 73.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 73.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 84.7% to PSA at 0.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 77.9% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 66.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,167 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 263 | 84.7% | 145 min | 5.70% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 565 | 77.9% | 85 min | 4.60% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 464 | 76.9% | 72 min | 2.59% | B |
| United Airlines (this page) | 943 | 73.2% | 78 min | 1.70% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,167 | 66.6% | 116 min | 6.08% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 184 min | 0.00% | F+ |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 6.1% 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 DSM 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 37 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am41 flights92.7%
- 8am–11am324 flights81.4%
- 11am–2pm209 flights71.4%
- 2pm–5pm284 flights67.8%
- 5pm–8pm83 flights56.1%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.1% on time, against 92.7% 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 324 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on DSM to ORD through the year
Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 62.4%. February is the strongest month at 85.2%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 23 points. September was the busiest month here, with 135 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 61.3%. 23 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 50% of the 19,000 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.
- 50%National Airspace System
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 35 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 19,163 reported delay minutes.
50% 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 9,618 minutes out of 19,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.70% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.42%.
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.
At 299 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 runs 73.4% on time across 943 flights, within half a point 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. 943 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 DSM to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 943 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 73.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 923 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DSM to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to DSM, the return leg
- American Airlines on DSM to ORD84.7%
- Republic Airways on DSM to ORD77.9%
- Envoy Air on DSM to ORD76.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on DSM to ORD66.6%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.