Carrier route record
UAOMA→ORD
United Airlines · Omaha to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,381
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 44%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on OMA to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,381 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 825 at 75.6% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on OMA 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
73.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,345 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.17%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
74.2%
Every carrier on OMA to ORD, 3,108 flights
These figures cover 1,381 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.9% 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 OMA to ORD
United flew 1,381 of the 3,108 flights on OMA to ORD, about 44% of it. Its 73.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 80.3% to SkyWest at 71.2%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 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 Airlinesthin sample | 243 | 80.3% | 82 min | 1.65% | B |
| Envoy Air | 825 | 75.6% | 75 min | 3.88% | B− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,381 | 73.6% | 95 min | 2.17% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 199 | 71.9% | 84 min | 3.52% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 8 | 71.4% | 55 min | 12.50% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 452 | 71.2% | 93 min | 4.42% | C− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 4.4% 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 OMA 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 22 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am89 flights84.1%
- 8am–11am341 flights84.5%
- 11am–2pm316 flights79.1%
- 2pm–5pm334 flights65.2%
- 5pm–8pm299 flights62.2%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.2% on time, against 84.5% for the 8am–11am 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 341 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on OMA to ORD through the year
August is the worst month at 61.9% on time, 23 points below February, the best at 84.8%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 153 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.2%, a spread of 12 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on OMA to ORD runs when it is late
The 355 late arrivals split 115 under half an hour, 94 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 146 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early226 flights16.8%
- Within 15 min764 flights56.8%
- 15–29 min late115 flights8.6%
- 30–59 min late94 flights7.0%
- 1–2 hours late63 flights4.7%
- 2+ hours late83 flights6.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,345 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
39 of 283 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. In the other direction, 111 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 OMA to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 10 March 2026, 17 hours 37 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. Three of the five worst days fell in November 2025.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 10 March 2026 | 17 hours 37 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 30 November 2025 | 16 hours 33 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 November 2025 | 16 hours 20 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 2 April 2026 | 14 hours 38 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 29 November 2025 | 10 hours 36 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 48% of the 34,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%National Airspace System
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
48% 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 16,000 minutes out of 34,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 33,680 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 84.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.17% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.43%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
10.9% 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.
At 416 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 69.6% on time across 1,379 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,381 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 OMA to ORD
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 84.8% on time and August 61.9%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,345 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- OMA to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to OMA, the return leg
- American Airlines on OMA to ORD80.3%
- Envoy Air on OMA to ORD75.6%
- Republic Airways on OMA to ORD71.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on OMA to ORD71.2%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Eppley Airfield (OMA) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.