Carrier route record
UAORD→DSM
United Airlines · Chicago to Des Moines
- Flights
- 943
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 28%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on ORD to DSM 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 943 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 566 at 75.6% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 75.6% on time across 566 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 925 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.70%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
71.0%
Every carrier on ORD to DSM, 3,405 flights
These figures cover 943 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.3% 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 DSM
United flew 943 of the 3,405 flights on ORD to DSM, about 28% of it. Its 73.4% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 75.6% to PSA at 0.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 75.6% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 67.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,168 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 566 | 75.6% | 74 min | 4.95% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 465 | 75.4% | 62 min | 2.58% | B |
| United Airlines (this page) | 943 | 73.4% | 69 min | 1.70% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,168 | 67.0% | 79 min | 5.14% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 262 | 61.8% | 117 min | 4.96% | D− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 176 min | 0.00% | F+ |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 5.1% 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.
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 20 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am208 flights81.0%
- 11am–2pm285 flights82.6%
- 2pm–5pm88 flights70.1%
- 5pm–8pm1 flights—
- 8pm–5am361 flights62.3%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.3% on time, against 82.6% for the 11am–2pm 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 361 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on ORD to DSM through the year
July is the worst month at 58.0% on time, 35 points below February, the best at 92.7%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 135 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 68.5%. 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 17,000 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
- 28%Carrier
- 13%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 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 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 17,025 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.70% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.
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. 10.3% 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 299 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 73.2% on time across 943 flights, within half a point 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. 943 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 DSM
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 943 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 73.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 925 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to DSM, every carrier
- United on DSM to ORD, the return leg
- Republic Airways on ORD to DSM75.6%
- Envoy Air on ORD to DSM75.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to DSM67.0%
- American Airlines on ORD to DSM61.8%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- 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.