Carrier route record
UAFLL→ORD
United Airlines · Fort Lauderdale to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,479
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 43%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on FLL 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 1,479 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 846 at 70.0% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on FLL 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
74.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,459 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.74%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
69.1%
Every carrier on FLL to ORD, 3,422 flights
These figures cover 1,479 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% 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 FLL to ORD
United flew 1,479 of the 3,422 flights on FLL to ORD, about 43% of it. Its 74.7% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 69.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 74.7% to Southwest at 38.7%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 70.0% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 61.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 913 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,479 | 74.7% | 81 min | 0.74% | C+ |
| American Airlines | 846 | 70.0% | 103 min | 1.54% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 913 | 61.3% | 73 min | 3.29% | D− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 151 | 61.1% | 148 min | 3.31% | D− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 33 | 38.7% | 98 min | 3.03% | F− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 3.3% 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 FLL 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 29 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am274 flights86.4%
- 8am–11am194 flights86.4%
- 11am–2pm398 flights85.8%
- 2pm–5pm473 flights57.7%
- 5pm–8pm139 flights61.9%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.4% of the time, against 57.7% for the afternoon window. That is 29 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 473 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on FLL to ORD through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 84.9% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 168 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 80.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.9%. 13 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 43% of the 30,000 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.
- 43%National Airspace System
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%Carrier
- 9%Extreme weather
43% 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 13,000 minutes out of 30,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 29,796 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.4% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.74%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.3% 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 1,182 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 78.5% on time across 1,478 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,479 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 FLL to ORD
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 84.9% on time and November 63.7%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of November before you think about anything else. 1,459 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FLL to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to FLL, the return leg
- American Airlines on FLL to ORD70.0%
- Spirit Airlines on FLL to ORD61.3%
- Frontier Airlines on FLL to ORD61.1%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.