UAEYW→ORD

United flew 138 of the 717 flights on EYW to ORD, about 19% of it. Its 54.5% on time is 13 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 67.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 79.4% to United at 54.5%. One 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.

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 19.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

The 1,251 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 77.2% on time across 138 flights, 23 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 23 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 138 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.