Carrier route record
UAORD→PSP
United Airlines · Chicago to Palm Springs
- Flights
- 335
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 43%
- 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 PSP lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four 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 335 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on ORD to PSP from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 331 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.19%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
69.5%
Every carrier on ORD to PSP, 787 flights
These figures cover 335 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 PSP
United flew 335 of the 787 flights on ORD to PSP, about 43% of it. Its 76.4% on time is 7 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 SkyWest at 100.0% to American at 64.2%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines (this page)thin sample | 335 | 76.4% | 66 min | 1.19% | B |
| American Airlines | 451 | 64.2% | 84 min | 3.10% | D− |
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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am237 flights78.0%
- 11am–2pm20 flights—
- 2pm–5pm3 flights—
- 5pm–8pm2 flights—
- 8pm–5am73 flights66.2%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 78.0% of the time, against 66.2% for the overnight window. That is 12 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 237 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on ORD to PSP through the year
- Jul–Sep 20256 flights—
- Oct–Dec 2025104 flights78.4%
- Jan–Mar 2026147 flights71.2%
- Apr–Jun 202678 flights81.8%
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 76.4% on time across 335 flights.
United on ORD to PSP did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 81.8% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 71.2%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 112 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 93.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 66.7%. 27 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 5,163 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
35% 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 5,163 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 5,163 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 78.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.19% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.6% 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 1,651 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 336 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. 335 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 PSP
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 335 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 76.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 331 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to PSP, every carrier
- United on PSP to ORD, the return leg
- American Airlines on ORD to PSP64.2%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.