Carrier route record
UAFSD→ORD
United Airlines · Sioux Falls to Chicago
- Flights
- 345
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 19%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on FSD to ORD lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 345 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 393 at 76.9% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, United's FSD to ORD record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 47 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 333 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.90%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
68.9%
Every carrier on FSD to ORD, 1,792 flights
These figures cover 345 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on FSD to ORD
United flew 345 of the 1,792 flights on FSD to ORD, about 19% of it. Its 82.0% on time is 13 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 68.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 82.0% to SkyWest at 61.1%. 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 76.9% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 61.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 964 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page)thin sample | 345 | 82.0% | 70 min | 2.90% | B |
| Envoy Air | 393 | 76.9% | 68 min | 3.82% | B− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 30 | 70.0% | 84 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 60 | 63.8% | 57 min | 3.33% | D− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 964 | 61.1% | 107 min | 4.25% | D− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 4.3% 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.
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Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 345 flights.
- 5am–8am236 flights80.7%
- 8am–11am109 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 84.8% on time for the 8am–11am window against 80.7% for 5am–8am. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 236 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on FSD to ORD through the year
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202579 flights80.0%
- Jan–Mar 202685 flights79.0%
- Apr–Jun 202689 flights78.2%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights88.3%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 82.0% on time across 345 flights.
United on FSD to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 78.2%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 69 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 90.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 72.3%, a spread of 18 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on FSD to ORD runs when it is late
United on FSD to ORD often beats the schedule: 97 of 333 completed flights, 29%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 60 late arrivals split 28 under half an hour, 13 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 19 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early97 flights29.1%
- Within 15 min176 flights52.9%
- 15–29 min late28 flights8.4%
- 30–59 min late13 flights3.9%
- 1–2 hours late8 flights2.4%
- 2+ hours late11 flights3.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 333 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
5 of 35 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. In the other direction, 30 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 FSD to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 October 2025, 10 hours 4 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 October 2025 | 10 hours 4 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 November 2025 | 5 hours 11 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 30 July 2026 | 3 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 November 2025 | 2 hours 40 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 April 2026 | 2 hours 30 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 53% of the 4,201 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%National Airspace System
- 41%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
53% 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 2,237 minutes out of 4,201, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 4,201 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,703 of the 4,201 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.90%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.7% 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 462 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 59.1% on time across 346 flights, 23 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 23 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 345 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 FSD to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.90% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 333 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FSD to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to FSD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on FSD to ORD76.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on FSD to ORD61.1%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.