Carrier route record
UAORD→MCI
United Airlines · Chicago to Kansas City
- Flights
- 1,435
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 35%
- 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 MCI sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,435 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 567 at 77.2% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 77.2% on time across 567 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,412 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.46%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
70.9%
Every carrier on ORD to MCI, 4,146 flights
These figures cover 1,435 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% 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 MCI
United flew 1,435 of the 4,146 flights on ORD to MCI, about 35% of it. Its 71.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 70.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 77.2% to American at 58.8%. 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 77.2% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 67.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 945 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 567 | 77.2% | 66 min | 1.59% | B |
| Envoy Air | 820 | 74.2% | 60 min | 3.41% | C− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,435 | 71.6% | 71 min | 1.46% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 945 | 67.9% | 87 min | 3.81% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 40 | 59.0% | 56 min | 2.50% | D |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 339 | 58.8% | 90 min | 2.65% | D |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 3.8% 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 MCI
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 30 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am54 flights82.0%
- 8am–11am357 flights82.8%
- 11am–2pm332 flights80.5%
- 2pm–5pm248 flights67.9%
- 5pm–8pm47 flights53.3%
- 8pm–5am397 flights57.0%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.3% on time, against 82.8% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 397 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on ORD to MCI through the year
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 64.2%. February is the strongest month at 79.3%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 15 points. June was the busiest month here, with 166 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.4%. 17 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 49% of the 28,000 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.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
49% 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 28,000 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 28,405 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 82.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.46% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
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. 10.1% 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 403 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.5% on time across 1,434 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,435 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 MCI
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 79.3% on time and March 64.2%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,412 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to MCI, every carrier
- United on MCI to ORD, the return leg
- Republic Airways on ORD to MCI77.2%
- Envoy Air on ORD to MCI74.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to MCI67.9%
- American Airlines on ORD to MCI58.8%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) 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.