Carrier route record
UAORD→PHX
United Airlines · Chicago to Phoenix
- Flights
- 1,938
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 35%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on ORD to PHX lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,938 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 2,993 at 71.4% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on ORD to PHX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,924 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.41%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.9%
Every carrier on ORD to PHX, 5,594 flights
These figures cover 1,938 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on ORD to PHX
United flew 1,938 of the 5,594 flights on ORD to PHX, about 35% of it. Its 79.1% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 79.1% to Southwest at 58.3%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 71.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 58.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 460 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,938 | 79.1% | 66 min | 0.41% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 2,993 | 71.4% | 84 min | 2.34% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 203 | 67.5% | 82 min | 3.94% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 460 | 58.3% | 67 min | 2.17% | D |
The spread between American and Southwest is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on ORD to PHX
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 31 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am195 flights88.2%
- 8am–11am388 flights81.0%
- 11am–2pm579 flights83.7%
- 2pm–5pm359 flights78.2%
- 5pm–8pm36 flights57.1%
- 8pm–5am381 flights68.0%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.1% on time, against 88.2% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 579 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on ORD to PHX through the year
Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 71.5%. August is the strongest month at 89.1%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 18 points. March was the busiest month here, with 213 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.3%. 7 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 46% of the 26,000 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
46% 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 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 26,394 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 88.2% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.41%, 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
7.3% 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.
The 1,440 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 77.3% on time across 1,937 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,938 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 PHX
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. August runs 89.1% on time and November 71.5%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of November before you think about anything else. 1,924 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to PHX, every carrier
- United on PHX to ORD, the return leg
- American Airlines on ORD to PHX71.4%
- Frontier Airlines on ORD to PHX67.5%
- Southwest Airlines on ORD to PHX58.3%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) 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.