Carrier route record
UAORD→SYR
United Airlines · Chicago to Syracuse
- Flights
- 405
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 19%
- 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 SYR sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 405 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 686 at 78.8% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so United on ORD to SYR runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 64 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 399 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.23%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.7%
Every carrier on ORD to SYR, 2,189 flights
These figures cover 405 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.3% 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 SYR
United flew 405 of the 2,189 flights on ORD to SYR, about 19% of it. Its 71.2% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 78.8% to American at 50.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point 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 Air | 686 | 78.8% | 56 min | 2.77% | B |
| Republic Airways | 754 | 78.8% | 77 min | 3.05% | B− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 405 | 71.2% | 79 min | 1.23% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 241 | 66.8% | 84 min | 3.73% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 103 | 50.0% | 98 min | 0.97% | F+ |
Republic Airways cancels 3.0% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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–11am3 flights—
- 11am–2pm28 flights—
- 2pm–5pm110 flights78.9%
- 5pm–8pm260 flights66.8%
- 8pm–5am4 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 78.9% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 66.8%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 260 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on ORD to SYR through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025162 flights69.6%
- Oct–Dec 2025101 flights67.3%
- Jan–Mar 20266 flights—
- Apr–Jun 2026136 flights76.1%
Scale runs 60% to 80%. 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 71.2% on time across 405 flights.
Quarter by quarter United on ORD to SYR held fairly steady: 69.6% in Jul–Sep 2025, 67.3% in Oct–Dec 2025 and 76.1% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 9 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.5%. 17 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 55% of the 9,101 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
55% 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 9,101 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 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 9,101 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.23% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.25%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 607 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 75.3% on time across 405 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. 405 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 SYR
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 405 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 71.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 399 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to SYR, every carrier
- United on SYR to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to SYR78.8%
- Republic Airways on ORD to SYR78.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to SYR66.8%
- American Airlines on ORD to SYR50.0%
- 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.