Carrier route record
UAPIT→ORD
United Airlines · Pittsburgh to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,290
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 33%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on PIT to ORD lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five 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 1,290 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 1,629 at 84.2% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on PIT 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
77.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,265 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.86%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.6%
Every carrier on PIT to ORD, 3,950 flights
These figures cover 1,290 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% 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 PIT to ORD
United flew 1,290 of the 3,950 flights on PIT to ORD, about 33% of it. Its 77.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 84.2% to SkyWest at 65.1%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 84.2% of the time; American Airlines manages 69.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 604 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,629 | 84.2% | 74 min | 1.66% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 190 | 78.3% | 105 min | 2.63% | B |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,290 | 77.9% | 95 min | 1.86% | B |
| American Airlines | 604 | 69.9% | 113 min | 2.98% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 237 | 65.1% | 105 min | 2.11% | C |
The spread between Republic and American is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 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 39 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am366 flights88.9%
- 8am–11am90 flights84.1%
- 11am–2pm198 flights92.8%
- 2pm–5pm326 flights77.7%
- 5pm–8pm308 flights53.5%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.5% on time, against 92.8% for the 11am–2pm slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 366 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on PIT to ORD through the year
December is the weak month at 64.9% on time, against 85.8% in May. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 121 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 82.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 71.1%. 11 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 52% of the 27,000 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.
- 52%National Airspace System
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
52% 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 14,000 minutes out of 27,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 26,566 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.86% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
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. 9.0% 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.
At 413 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 75.8% on time across 1,291 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 1,290 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 PIT to ORD
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 85.8% on time and December 64.9%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,265 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PIT to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to PIT, the return leg
- Republic Airways on PIT to ORD84.2%
- Envoy Air on PIT to ORD78.3%
- American Airlines on PIT to ORD69.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on PIT to ORD65.1%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.