Carrier route record
UAMSN→ORD
United Airlines · Madison to Chicago
- Flights
- 937
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 23%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on MSN to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 937 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 1,067 at 78.1% on time.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.1% on time across 1,067 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 915 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.35%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
71.9%
Every carrier on MSN to ORD, 4,030 flights
These figures cover 937 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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 MSN to ORD
United flew 937 of the 4,030 flights on MSN to ORD, about 23% of it. Its 72.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 71.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 78.1% to PSA at 33.7%. One 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 78.1% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 66.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,268 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 1,067 | 78.1% | 72 min | 3.84% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 650 | 76.0% | 74 min | 2.46% | B |
| United Airlines (this page) | 937 | 72.6% | 71 min | 2.35% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,268 | 66.8% | 109 min | 4.97% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 108 | 33.7% | 165 min | 12.04% | F− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 5.0% 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 MSN 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 32 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am337 flights78.4%
- 8am–11am253 flights80.3%
- 11am–2pm47 flights89.4%
- 2pm–5pm263 flights57.8%
- 5pm–8pm19 flights—
- 8pm–5am18 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 89.4% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 57.8%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 337 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on MSN to ORD through the year
August is the worst month at 62.5% on time, 21 points below February, the best at 83.5%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 131 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 79.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.6%. 14 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 54% of the 18,000 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.
- 54%National Airspace System
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
54% 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 9,672 minutes out of 18,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 17,902 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.35% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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 108 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 68.7% on time across 936 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 937 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 MSN to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 937 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 72.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 915 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSN to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to MSN, the return leg
- Envoy Air on MSN to ORD78.1%
- Republic Airways on MSN to ORD76.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on MSN to ORD66.8%
- PSA Airlines on MSN to ORD33.7%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.