Carrier route record
UAORD→ALB
United Airlines · Chicago to Albany
- Flights
- 756
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 33%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on ORD to ALB 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 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 756 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 756 at 79.1% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on ORD to ALB from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
73.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 746 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.32%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.7%
Every carrier on ORD to ALB, 2,304 flights
These figures cover 756 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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 ORD to ALB
United flew 756 of the 2,304 flights on ORD to ALB, about 33% of it. Its 73.7% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 79.1% to United at 73.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 756 | 79.1% | 54 min | 2.38% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 205 | 74.4% | 84 min | 2.44% | C |
| Republic Airways | 587 | 74.2% | 71 min | 4.09% | C− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 756 | 73.7% | 67 min | 1.32% | C |
Republic Airways cancels 4.1% 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 ORD to ALB
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 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am70 flights94.3%
- 8am–11am75 flights81.3%
- 11am–2pm196 flights82.1%
- 2pm–5pm33 flights62.5%
- 5pm–8pm360 flights64.2%
- 8pm–5am22 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.3% of the time, against 62.5% for the afternoon window. That is 32 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 360 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on ORD to ALB through the year
Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 60.0%. June is the strongest month at 82.6%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 23 points. May was the busiest month here, with 102 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.7%. 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 13,000 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
55% 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 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 13,163 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 94.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.32% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
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. 9.4% 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.
The 723 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 runs 76.4% on time across 756 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 756 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 ALB
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 756 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 73.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 746 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to ALB, every carrier
- United on ALB to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to ALB79.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to ALB74.4%
- Republic Airways on ORD to ALB74.2%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- 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.