Carrier route record
UAORD→PDX
United Airlines · Chicago to Portland
- Flights
- 1,394
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 50%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on ORD to PDX sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,394 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Alaska Airlines, flew 506 at 72.8% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so United on ORD to PDX runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 50 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,384 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.43%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
69.5%
Every carrier on ORD to PDX, 2,761 flights
These figures cover 1,394 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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 PDX
United flew 1,394 of the 2,761 flights on ORD to PDX, most of the route. Its 72.6% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 69.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 72.8% to American at 62.6%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Alaska Airlines arrives on time 72.8% of the time; American Airlines manages 62.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 861 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 506 | 72.8% | 50 min | 1.19% | C |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,394 | 72.6% | 61 min | 0.43% | C+ |
| American Airlines | 861 | 62.6% | 71 min | 1.39% | D |
Alaska leads American by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on ORD to PDX
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 29 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am93 flights90.2%
- 8am–11am365 flights83.0%
- 11am–2pm214 flights77.5%
- 2pm–5pm364 flights66.5%
- 5pm–8pm17 flights—
- 8pm–5am341 flights61.7%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.7% on time, against 90.2% 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 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on ORD to PDX through the year
December is the weak month at 50.5% on time, against 86.2% in September. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 150 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.3%. 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 44% of the 23,000 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
44% 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 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 23,259 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 90.2% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.43%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,739 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.7% on time across 1,393 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,394 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 PDX
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 86.2% on time and December 50.5%, a swing of 36 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,384 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to PDX, every carrier
- United on PDX to ORD, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on ORD to PDX72.8%
- American Airlines on ORD to PDX62.6%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.