Carrier route record
UAOMA→ORD
United Airlines · Omaha to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,347
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 45%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,347 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 855 at 75.6% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
74.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,320 completed flights
Avg delay
92 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.71%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.5%
Every carrier on OMA to ORD, 3,025 flights
These figures cover 1,347 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.8% 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 OMA to ORD
United flew 1,347 of the 3,025 flights on OMA to ORD, about 45% of it. Its 74.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 76.0% to PSA at 71.4%. 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 | 261 | 76.0% | 126 min | 2.30% | B |
| Envoy Air | 855 | 75.6% | 69 min | 3.39% | B− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,347 | 74.6% | 92 min | 1.71% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 170 | 72.7% | 73 min | 2.94% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 384 | 71.5% | 80 min | 3.91% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 8 | 71.4% | 55 min | 12.50% | C− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 3.9% 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
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am65 flights85.9%
- 8am–11am361 flights84.6%
- 11am–2pm316 flights80.2%
- 2pm–5pm327 flights65.7%
- 5pm–8pm276 flights63.7%
- 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: 63.7% on time, against 85.9% 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 361 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on OMA to ORD through the year
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 63.2%. February is the strongest month at 84.8%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 22 points. May was the busiest month here, with 153 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.7%. 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 45% of the 31,000 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.
- 45%National Airspace System
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 8%Extreme weather
45% 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 14,000 minutes out of 31,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 30,903 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 85.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.71% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
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. 9.8% 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 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 70.6% on time across 1,348 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 1,347 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 March 63.2%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,320 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 ORD76.0%
- Envoy Air on OMA to ORD75.6%
- Republic Airways on OMA to ORD72.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on OMA to ORD71.5%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- 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 7.04 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.