Carrier route record
UAPHX→ORD
United Airlines · Phoenix to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,937
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 35%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on PHX to ORD lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,937 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 2,994 at 78.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on PHX 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
77.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,917 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.52%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.4%
Every carrier on PHX to ORD, 5,593 flights
These figures cover 1,937 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 PHX to ORD
United flew 1,937 of the 5,593 flights on PHX to ORD, about 35% of it. Its 77.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 78.7% to Southwest at 60.8%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 78.7% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 60.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 459 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 2,994 | 78.7% | 75 min | 2.24% | B |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,937 | 77.3% | 82 min | 0.52% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 203 | 68.8% | 122 min | 3.94% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 459 | 60.8% | 67 min | 1.31% | D |
The spread between American and Southwest is 18 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 18 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 20 points, against 18 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am281 flights88.5%
- 8am–11am417 flights78.5%
- 11am–2pm507 flights76.3%
- 2pm–5pm433 flights68.1%
- 5pm–8pm177 flights79.9%
- 8pm–5am122 flights80.2%
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 88.5% of the time, against 68.1% for the afternoon window. That is 20 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 507 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on PHX to ORD through the year
Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 69.0%. February is the strongest month at 84.9%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 16 points. March was the busiest month here, with 212 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 80.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.9%. 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 51% of the 36,000 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%National Airspace System
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
51% 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 18,000 minutes out of 36,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 35,938 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.52%, 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
7.5% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,440 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 79.1% on time across 1,938 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,937 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 PHX to ORD
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 84.9% on time and November 69.0%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of November before you think about anything else. 1,917 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to PHX, the return leg
- American Airlines on PHX to ORD78.7%
- Frontier Airlines on PHX to ORD68.8%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to ORD60.8%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- 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.