Carrier route record
UAPDX→ORD
United Airlines · Portland to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,393
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 50%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on PDX to ORD lands a B+, 3 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 1,393 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Alaska Airlines, flew 510 at 74.5% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on PDX to ORD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,375 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.65%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.5%
Every carrier on PDX to ORD, 2,766 flights
These figures cover 1,393 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 PDX to ORD
United flew 1,393 of the 2,766 flights on PDX to ORD, most of the route. Its 80.7% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 80.7% to American at 74.0%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,393 | 80.7% | 68 min | 0.65% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 510 | 74.5% | 39 min | 1.37% | C |
| American Airlines | 863 | 74.0% | 95 min | 1.51% | C |
No carrier stands out. Alaska tops the table at 74.5%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on PDX to ORD
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 23 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–8am365 flights87.2%
- 8am–11am195 flights77.4%
- 11am–2pm210 flights81.1%
- 2pm–5pm207 flights64.0%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am416 flights84.4%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.2% of the time, against 64.0% for the afternoon window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 416 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on PDX to ORD through the year
July is the worst month at 71.1% on time, 20 points below February, the best at 90.8%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. June was the busiest month here, with 150 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.6%. 7 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. National Airspace System accounts for 44% of the 18,000 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.
- 44%National Airspace System
- 29%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
44% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 8,017 minutes out of 18,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 18,139 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.65%, 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
5.7% 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.
At 1,739 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 72.6% on time across 1,394 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,393 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 PDX to ORD
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 90.8% on time and July 71.1%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,375 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PDX to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to PDX, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on PDX to ORD74.5%
- American Airlines on PDX to ORD74.0%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.