Carrier route record
UAORD→TPA
United Airlines · Chicago to Tampa
- Flights
- 1,403
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 44%
- Carriers
- 7
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on ORD to TPA lands a B+, about a point 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 1,403 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on ORD to TPA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,394 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.50%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.0%
Every carrier on ORD to TPA, 3,217 flights
These figures cover 1,403 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 TPA
United flew 1,403 of the 3,217 flights on ORD to TPA, about 44% of it. Its 78.4% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 100.0% to Envoy at 50.0%. Five 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,403 | 78.4% | 71 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 283 | 71.3% | 97 min | 2.83% | C |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 214 | 71.2% | 91 min | 0.93% | C+ |
| American Airlines | 1,141 | 68.0% | 70 min | 1.93% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 173 | 66.7% | 153 min | 4.62% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 50.0% | 16 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on ORD to TPA
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 22 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–8am344 flights88.3%
- 8am–11am180 flights77.8%
- 11am–2pm281 flights82.1%
- 2pm–5pm315 flights75.7%
- 5pm–8pm281 flights66.4%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.3% of the time, against 66.4% for the evening window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 344 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on ORD to TPA through the year
December is the weak month at 67.9% on time, against 83.9% in October. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 150 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.2%. 16 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 45% of the 21,000 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 9%Extreme weather
45% 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 21,000 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 21,287 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 88.3% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.50%, 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
7.2% 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 1,012 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 75.0% on time across 1,403 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,403 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 TPA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 83.9% on time and December 67.9%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,394 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to TPA, every carrier
- United on TPA to ORD, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on ORD to TPA71.3%
- Southwest Airlines on ORD to TPA71.2%
- American Airlines on ORD to TPA68.0%
- Frontier Airlines on ORD to TPA66.7%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) 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.