Carrier route record
UAORD→DFW
United Airlines · Chicago to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 2,010
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 29%
- Carriers
- 7
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on ORD to DFW 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 a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,010 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 4,233 at 68.3% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so United on ORD to DFW runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 44 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,969 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.29%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
69.7%
Every carrier on ORD to DFW, 6,955 flights
These figures cover 2,010 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.2% 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 DFW
United flew 2,010 of the 6,955 flights on ORD to DFW, about 29% of it. Its 73.2% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 69.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 87.5% to Spirit at 63.6%. Four of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 8 | 87.5% | 22 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 12 | 75.0% | 65 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 2,010 | 73.2% | 72 min | 1.29% | C |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 134 | 71.9% | 71 min | 3.73% | C− |
| American Airlines | 4,233 | 68.3% | 94 min | 3.87% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 434 | 68.0% | 85 min | 3.69% | C− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 124 | 63.6% | 82 min | 3.23% | D− |
American 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 ORD to DFW
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 24 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–8am320 flights83.0%
- 8am–11am562 flights77.2%
- 11am–2pm450 flights74.2%
- 2pm–5pm325 flights69.7%
- 5pm–8pm128 flights59.2%
- 8pm–5am225 flights59.7%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.2% on time, against 83.0% 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 562 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on ORD to DFW through the year
July is the worst month at 65.9% on time, 22 points below February, the best at 87.6%. 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 201 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 67.5%. 13 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 43% of the 38,000 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.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
43% 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 38,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 38,152 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 83.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.29% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.75%.
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. 11.2% 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 802 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 71.7% on time across 2,010 flights, within 2 points 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 2,010 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 ORD to DFW
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 87.6% on time and July 65.9%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,969 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to DFW, every carrier
- United on DFW to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to DFW71.9%
- American Airlines on ORD to DFW68.3%
- Frontier Airlines on ORD to DFW68.0%
- Spirit Airlines on ORD to DFW63.6%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) 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.