Carrier route record
UAPVD→ORD
United Airlines · Providence to Chicago
- Flights
- 119
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 7%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on PVD to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 40 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 119 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 431 at 79.2% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on PVD 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
75.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 115 completed flights
Avg delay
42 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.52%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.6%
Every carrier on PVD to ORD, 1,654 flights
These figures cover 119 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 PVD to ORD
United flew 119 of the 1,654 flights on PVD to ORD, about 7% of it. Its 75.7% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 79.2% to SkyWest at 69.4%. Two 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 79.2% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 69.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 768 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 431 | 79.2% | 108 min | 3.02% | B− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 274 | 77.0% | 98 min | 5.84% | B− |
| United Airlines (this page)thin sample | 119 | 75.7% | 42 min | 2.52% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 62 | 69.5% | 50 min | 4.84% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 768 | 69.4% | 102 min | 3.52% | C− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 3.5% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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 16 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am51 flights84.0%
- 8am–11am37 flights70.6%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm31 flights67.7%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.0% of the time, against 67.7% for the afternoon window. That is 16 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 51 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on PVD to ORD through the year
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202547 flights76.6%
- Jan–Mar 202642 flights69.2%
Scale runs 60% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 75.7% on time across 119 flights.
Split by quarter, United on PVD to ORD logged 30 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 47 flights in Oct–Dec 2025 and 42 flights in Jan–Mar 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 75.7% annual figure is the one to use.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 50% of the 1,184 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.
- 50%National Airspace System
- 44%Carrier
- 6%Late-arriving aircraft
50% 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 597 minutes out of 1,184, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 1,184 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 519 of the 1,184 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.52%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.6% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 849 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 72.9% on time across 119 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 119 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 PVD to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 119 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 75.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 115 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PVD to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to PVD, the return leg
- American Airlines on PVD to ORD79.2%
- Envoy Air on PVD to ORD77.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on PVD to ORD69.4%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- 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.