Carrier route record
UAORD→PVD
United Airlines · Chicago to Providence
- Flights
- 119
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 7%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on ORD to PVD 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 roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 119 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 768 at 65.7% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so United on ORD to PVD runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 47 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 118 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.84%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
68.7%
Every carrier on ORD to PVD, 1,654 flights
These figures cover 119 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on ORD to PVD
United flew 119 of the 1,654 flights on ORD to PVD, about 7% of it. Its 72.9% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 68.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 84.0% to American at 61.5%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 274 | 84.0% | 64 min | 4.38% | B− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 62 | 81.4% | 59 min | 4.84% | B− |
| United Airlines (this page)thin sample | 119 | 72.9% | 54 min | 0.84% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 768 | 65.7% | 70 min | 2.73% | C |
| American Airlines | 431 | 61.5% | 89 min | 2.78% | D |
No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 65.7%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 33 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm32 flights96.9%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm87 flights64.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.0% on time, against 96.9% for the 11am–2pm 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 87 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on ORD to PVD through the year
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights73.3%
- Oct–Dec 202548 flights81.2%
- Jan–Mar 202641 flights62.5%
Scale runs 55% 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 72.9% on time across 119 flights.
United on ORD to PVD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 81.2% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 62.5%, a swing of 19 points on roughly 40 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.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 47% of the 1,726 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.
- 47%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 810 of the 1,726 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,726 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.84%, 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
7.6% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 849 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 75.7% on time across 119 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 119 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 PVD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 119 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 72.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 118 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to PVD, every carrier
- United on PVD to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to PVD84.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to PVD65.7%
- American Airlines on ORD to PVD61.5%
- 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.