Carrier route record
UAPNS→ORD
United Airlines · Pensacola to Chicago
- Flights
- 363
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 48%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on PNS to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on PNS 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
74.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 358 completed flights
Avg delay
98 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.5%
Every carrier on PNS to ORD, 756 flights
These figures cover 363 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on PNS to ORD
United flew 363 of the 756 flights on PNS to ORD, about 48% of it. Its 74.0% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 94.7% to United at 74.0%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 21 | 94.7% | 438 min | 4.76% | A− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 288 | 78.3% | 89 min | 2.78% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 84 | 76.9% | 117 min | 7.14% | B− |
| United Airlines (this page)thin sample | 363 | 74.0% | 98 min | 1.10% | C |
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Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 363 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split United's PNS to ORD record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 74.0% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
United on PNS to ORD through the year
August is the worst month at 64.5% on time, 26 points below October, the best at 90.3%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 50 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 62.5%, a spread of 21 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on PNS to ORD runs when it is late
The 93 late arrivals split 35 under half an hour, 15 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 43 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early75 flights20.9%
- Within 15 min190 flights53.1%
- 15–29 min late35 flights9.8%
- 30–59 min late15 flights4.2%
- 1–2 hours late15 flights4.2%
- 2+ hours late28 flights7.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 358 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
14 of 77 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. In the other direction, 30 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at ORD.
The worst days
Worst days for United on PNS to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 17 July 2026, 6 hours 36 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 17 July 2026 | 6 hours 36 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 May 2026 | 6 hours 30 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 4 July 2026 | 6 hours 24 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 5 September 2025 | 6 hours 16 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 16 March 2026 | 6 hours 13 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 46% of the 9,089 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%National Airspace System
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,089 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 42 to one. The split is drawn from 9,089 reported delay minutes.
46% 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 4,181 minutes out of 9,089, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
12.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 794 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.8% on time across 363 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. 363 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 PNS to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 363 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 74.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 358 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.