Carrier route record
UALGA→ORD
United Airlines · New York to Chicago
- Flights
- 4,671
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 40%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on LGA to ORD carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 4,671 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 2,989 at 69.2% on time.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 69.2% on time across 2,989 flights.
Key figures
On time
65.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,459 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.24%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
66.7%
Every carrier on LGA to ORD, 11,630 flights
These figures cover 4,671 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on LGA to ORD
United flew 4,671 of the 11,630 flights on LGA to ORD, about 40% of it. Its 65.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 66.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 69.2% to SkyWest at 61.8%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The three carriers here are closely matched: 3 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 2,989 | 69.2% | 89 min | 4.78% | C− |
| Republic Airways | 1,285 | 68.3% | 62 min | 9.42% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,309 | 65.8% | 97 min | 5.89% | C− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 4,671 | 65.4% | 90 min | 4.24% | C− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 284 | 64.0% | 88 min | 7.04% | D− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 92 | 61.8% | 90 min | 17.39% | D− |
Republic Airways cancels 9.4% 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 LGA to ORD
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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 41 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am657 flights84.8%
- 8am–11am985 flights80.4%
- 11am–2pm593 flights69.7%
- 2pm–5pm941 flights58.8%
- 5pm–8pm938 flights43.5%
- 8pm–5am557 flights58.1%
Scale runs 35% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 43.5% on time, against 84.8% 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 985 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on LGA to ORD through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 78.9% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 441 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 72.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 57.0%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on LGA to ORD runs when it is late
The 1,541 late arrivals split 443 under half an hour, 406 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 692 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early914 flights20.5%
- Within 15 min2,004 flights44.9%
- 15–29 min late443 flights9.9%
- 30–59 min late406 flights9.1%
- 1–2 hours late342 flights7.7%
- 2+ hours late350 flights7.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 4,459 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 1,085 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 100 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 556 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 LGA to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 28 July 2026, 19 hours 34 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. Three of the five worst days fell in July 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 28 July 2026 | 19 hours 34 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 4 July 2026 | 15 hours 46 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 2 August 2026 | 15 hours 30 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 4 July 2026 | 15 hours 28 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 7 August 2026 | 14 hours 16 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 139,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 40%National Airspace System
- 11%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 139,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 139,077 reported delay minutes.
40% 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 55,000 minutes out of 139,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.24%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
15.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 733 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 runs 66.1% on time across 4,671 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.
The sample behind these figures is 4,671 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 LGA to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.24% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 4,459 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LGA to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to LGA, the return leg
- American Airlines on LGA to ORD69.2%
- Republic Airways on LGA to ORD68.3%
- Delta Air Lines on LGA to ORD65.8%
- Spirit Airlines on LGA to ORD64.0%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.