Carrier route record
UAMSP→ORD
United Airlines · Minneapolis to Chicago
- Flights
- 2,398
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 38%
- Carriers
- 8
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on MSP 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, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 2,398 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 532 at 76.1% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 76.1% on time across 532 flights.
Key figures
On time
69.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,361 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.38%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
69.9%
Every carrier on MSP to ORD, 6,324 flights
These figures cover 2,398 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% 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 MSP to ORD
United flew 2,398 of the 6,324 flights on MSP to ORD, about 38% of it. Its 69.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 69.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of eight carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 76.1% to Frontier at 41.7%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 76.1% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 67.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,412 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 532 | 76.1% | 87 min | 6.58% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 1,084 | 74.0% | 72 min | 2.86% | C |
| United Airlines (this page) | 2,398 | 69.7% | 84 min | 1.38% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 704 | 67.6% | 93 min | 3.41% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,412 | 67.3% | 66 min | 1.84% | C |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 138 | 65.0% | 128 min | 0.72% | C+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 43 | 54.8% | 79 min | 2.33% | F |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 13 | 41.7% | 85 min | 7.69% | F− |
Republic Airways cancels 6.6% 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 MSP 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 38 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am420 flights87.7%
- 8am–11am581 flights82.8%
- 11am–2pm438 flights74.8%
- 2pm–5pm426 flights53.4%
- 5pm–8pm517 flights49.5%
- 8pm–5am16 flights—
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 49.5% on time, against 87.7% 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 581 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on MSP to ORD through the year
December is the weak month at 57.4% on time, against 80.1% in February. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. October was the busiest month here, with 230 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 62.6%. 15 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 50% of the 60,000 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.
- 50%National Airspace System
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
50% 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 30,000 minutes out of 60,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 59,799 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 87.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.38% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.17%.
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. 10.8% 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.
At 334 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 69.5% on time across 2,401 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 2,398 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 MSP to ORD
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 80.1% on time and December 57.4%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,361 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to MSP, the return leg
- Republic Airways on MSP to ORD76.1%
- Envoy Air on MSP to ORD74.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on MSP to ORD67.6%
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to ORD67.3%
- American Airlines on MSP to ORD65.0%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) 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.