Carrier route record
UAORD→DTW
United Airlines · Chicago to Detroit
- Flights
- 827
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 14%
- Carriers
- 7
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on ORD to DTW sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 827 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 454 at 79.2% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 79.2% on time across 454 flights.
Key figures
On time
70.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 819 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.97%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
71.1%
Every carrier on ORD to DTW, 6,013 flights
These figures cover 827 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on ORD to DTW
United flew 827 of the 6,013 flights on ORD to DTW, about 14% of it. Its 70.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 71.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number five of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 79.2% to PSA at 60.0%. 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 79.2% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 64.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,563 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 454 | 79.2% | 77 min | 4.63% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 946 | 78.2% | 52 min | 3.38% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,156 | 77.3% | 96 min | 3.20% | B− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 47 | 70.7% | 135 min | 12.77% | C− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 827 | 70.0% | 80 min | 0.97% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 2,563 | 64.6% | 92 min | 3.47% | D− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 20 | 60.0% | 68 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Republic Airways cancels 4.6% 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.
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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 38 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am149 flights93.3%
- 8am–11am78 flights79.5%
- 11am–2pm88 flights75.3%
- 2pm–5pm111 flights67.3%
- 5pm–8pm211 flights62.5%
- 8pm–5am190 flights55.0%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.0% on time, against 93.3% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 211 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on ORD to DTW through the year
August is the worst month at 54.3% on time, 26 points below September, the best at 79.8%. 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 109 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 75.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.8%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on ORD to DTW runs when it is late
The 246 late arrivals split 73 under half an hour, 65 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 108 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early120 flights14.7%
- Within 15 min453 flights55.3%
- 15–29 min late73 flights8.9%
- 30–59 min late65 flights7.9%
- 1–2 hours late59 flights7.2%
- 2+ hours late49 flights6.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 819 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 212 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 20 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 54 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DTW.
The worst days
Worst days for United on ORD to DTW
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 March 2026, 11 hours 13 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 March 2026 | 11 hours 13 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 November 2025 | 7 hours 54 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 April 2026 | 6 hours 4 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 1 December 2025 | 5 hours 25 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 11 June 2026 | 5 hours 19 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 57% of the 20,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
57% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 19,560 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 93.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.97% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
13.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 235 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 73.5% on time across 827 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. 827 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 DTW
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 827 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 70.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 819 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to DTW, every carrier
- United on DTW to ORD, the return leg
- Republic Airways on ORD to DTW79.2%
- Envoy Air on ORD to DTW78.2%
- Delta Air Lines on ORD to DTW77.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to DTW64.6%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.