Carrier route record
UAORD→OMA
United Airlines · Chicago to Omaha
- Flights
- 1,348
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 45%
- 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 OMA 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 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,348 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 855 at 75.8% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so United on ORD to OMA runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 70 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,331 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.19%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
69.3%
Every carrier on ORD to OMA, 3,022 flights
These figures cover 1,348 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% 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 OMA
United flew 1,348 of the 3,022 flights on ORD to OMA, about 45% of it. Its 70.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 69.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 75.8% to American at 50.0%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 75.8% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 63.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 381 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 855 | 75.8% | 55 min | 3.27% | B− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,348 | 70.6% | 65 min | 1.19% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 170 | 70.1% | 66 min | 3.53% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 381 | 63.2% | 83 min | 2.89% | D |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 8 | 57.1% | 60 min | 12.50% | D− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 260 | 50.0% | 63 min | 1.92% | F |
Envoy Air cancels 3.3% 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 OMA
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 28 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am316 flights83.8%
- 11am–2pm326 flights76.9%
- 2pm–5pm279 flights70.7%
- 5pm–8pm3 flights—
- 8pm–5am424 flights55.9%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.9% on time, against 83.8% 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 424 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on ORD to OMA through the year
December is the weak month at 51.3% on time, against 82.8% in February. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. May was the busiest month here, with 154 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.3%. 16 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 48% of the 25,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
48% 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 25,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 25,361 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 83.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.19% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.07%.
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. 9.7% 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 416 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 74.6% on time across 1,347 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,348 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 OMA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 82.8% on time and December 51.3%, a swing of 32 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,331 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to OMA, every carrier
- United on OMA to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to OMA75.8%
- Republic Airways on ORD to OMA70.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to OMA63.2%
- American Airlines on ORD to OMA50.0%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.