Carrier route record
UAORD→SAV
United Airlines · Chicago to Savannah
- Flights
- 735
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 47%
- 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 SAV 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 735 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on ORD to SAV from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 728 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.82%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.0%
Every carrier on ORD to SAV, 1,561 flights
These figures cover 735 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 SAV
United flew 735 of the 1,561 flights on ORD to SAV, about 47% of it. Its 79.9% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 82.6% to SkyWest at 68.2%. Four 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 275 | 82.6% | 65 min | 1.82% | B |
| United Airlines (this page) | 735 | 79.9% | 78 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 182 | 72.6% | 82 min | 1.10% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 168 | 69.4% | 71 min | 4.17% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 201 | 68.2% | 89 min | 2.99% | C |
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 half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am140 flights89.9%
- 8am–11am135 flights92.6%
- 11am–2pm317 flights75.4%
- 2pm–5pm92 flights64.4%
- 5pm–8pm51 flights74.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 92.6% of the time, against 64.4% for the afternoon window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 317 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on ORD to SAV through the year
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 66.7%. June is the strongest month at 93.3%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 27 points. April was the busiest month here, with 89 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 75.5%. 10 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 51% of the 11,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
51% 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 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 11,427 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 92.6% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, 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
7.7% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 773 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.2% on time across 735 flights, 11 points below 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 735 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 SAV
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 735 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 79.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 728 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to SAV, every carrier
- United on SAV to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to SAV82.6%
- American Airlines on ORD to SAV72.6%
- Republic Airways on ORD to SAV69.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to SAV68.2%
- 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.