Carrier route record

UAORD→ABQ

United Airlines · Chicago to Albuquerque

Flights: 392
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 33%
Carriers: 5

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.

United on ORD to ABQ sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 392 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on ORD to ABQ from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

75.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 389 completed flights

Avg delay

60 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.77%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

70.8%

Every carrier on ORD to ABQ, 1,178 flights

These figures cover 392 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Carrier by carrier

United against every carrier on ORD to ABQ

United flew 392 of the 1,178 flights on ORD to ABQ, about 33% of it. Its 75.3% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 78.3% to SkyWest at 58.3%. Four of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.

On-time performance by carrier on ORD to ABQ
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airwaysthin sample	60	78.3%	79 min	0.00%	B+
United Airlines (this page)	392	75.3%	60 min	0.77%	B+
Envoy Airthin sample	320	71.5%	71 min	1.25%	C
American Airlinesthin sample	298	67.0%	63 min	1.01%	C
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	108	58.3%	80 min	4.63%	D−

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 26 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am—
8am–11am304 flights80.1%
11am–2pm15 flights—
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm73 flights54.2%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.2% on time, against 80.1% 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 304 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

United on ORD to ABQ through the year

Jul–Sep 2025139 flights70.8%
Oct–Dec 202587 flights75.9%
Jan–Mar 202666 flights77.3%
Apr–Jun 2026100 flights79.8%

Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 75.3% on time across 392 flights.

Quarter by quarter United on ORD to ABQ held fairly steady: 70.8% in Jul–Sep 2025, 75.9% in Oct–Dec 2025, 77.3% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 79.8% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 9 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 84.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 66.7%. 18 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 5,714 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
50%
Carrier
25%
National Airspace System
17%
Extreme weather
8%

50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 5,714 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 5,714 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 80.1% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.77%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.5% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 1,118 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.1% on time across 392 flights, 4 points above 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. 392 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 ORD to ABQ

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 392 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 75.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 389 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures