Carrier route record
UAJAX→ORD
United Airlines · Jacksonville to Chicago
- Flights
- 896
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 41%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on JAX to ORD lands a B+, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 896 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 434 at 79.6% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on JAX 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
78.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 885 completed flights
Avg delay
92 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.89%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.9%
Every carrier on JAX to ORD, 2,172 flights
These figures cover 896 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 JAX to ORD
United flew 896 of the 2,172 flights on JAX to ORD, about 41% of it. Its 78.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 100.0% to SkyWest at 70.2%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 434 | 79.6% | 115 min | 2.53% | B |
| United Airlines (this page) | 896 | 78.2% | 92 min | 0.89% | B+ |
| Republic Airways | 365 | 78.0% | 75 min | 4.11% | B− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 259 | 72.3% | 69 min | 0.39% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 217 | 70.2% | 82 min | 2.76% | C |
Republic Airways cancels 4.1% 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.
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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 25 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am161 flights89.9%
- 8am–11am191 flights89.5%
- 11am–2pm168 flights83.1%
- 2pm–5pm310 flights65.0%
- 5pm–8pm66 flights65.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.9% of the time, against 65.0% for the afternoon window. That is 25 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 310 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on JAX to ORD through the year
August is the worst month at 64.5% on time, 27 points below October, the best at 91.9%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 102 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 83.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.5%, a spread of 12 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on JAX to ORD runs when it is late
The 193 late arrivals split 70 under half an hour, 53 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 70 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early219 flights24.7%
- Within 15 min473 flights53.4%
- 15–29 min late70 flights7.9%
- 30–59 min late53 flights6.0%
- 1–2 hours late20 flights2.3%
- 2+ hours late50 flights5.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 885 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 129 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 12 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 76 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 JAX to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 4 July 2026, 17 hours 19 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 4 July 2026 | 17 hours 19 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 May 2026 | 13 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 March 2026 | 7 hours 30 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 May 2026 | 7 hours 24 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 March 2026 | 7 hours 4 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 42% of the 18,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%National Airspace System
- 34%Carrier
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
42% 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 7,525 minutes out of 18,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 17,823 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.89%, below the national 1.89% 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
7.9% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 864 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.0% on time across 895 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 896 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 JAX to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 896 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 78.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 885 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- JAX to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to JAX, the return leg
- American Airlines on JAX to ORD79.6%
- Republic Airways on JAX to ORD78.0%
- Envoy Air on JAX to ORD72.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on JAX to ORD70.2%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Jacksonville International (JAX) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.