Carrier route record
UASAV→ORD
United Airlines · Savannah to Chicago
- Flights
- 735
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 47%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on SAV to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 735 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so United on SAV to ORD runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 84 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 725 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.95%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.6%
Every carrier on SAV to ORD, 1,563 flights
These figures cover 735 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% 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 SAV to ORD
United flew 735 of the 1,563 flights on SAV to ORD, about 47% of it. Its 69.2% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 84.7% to United at 69.2%. Four 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 | 202 | 84.7% | 63 min | 2.97% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 167 | 83.4% | 59 min | 2.40% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 276 | 83.1% | 145 min | 1.81% | B |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 183 | 72.8% | 100 min | 1.09% | C |
| United Airlines (this page) | 735 | 69.2% | 83 min | 0.95% | C+ |
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 34 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–8am2 flights—
- 8am–11am140 flights84.9%
- 11am–2pm234 flights83.6%
- 2pm–5pm234 flights50.6%
- 5pm–8pm125 flights58.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 84.9% of the time, against 50.6% for the afternoon window. That is 34 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 234 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on SAV to ORD through the year
July is the worst month at 44.0% on time, 37 points below May, the best at 80.5%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 90 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 76.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 63.2%. 14 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 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.
- 52%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 14%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%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 9,500 minutes out of 18,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 18,390 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.95% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.41%.
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. 11.0% 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.
The 773 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.9% on time across 735 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 735 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 SAV to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 735 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 69.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 725 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SAV to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to SAV, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on SAV to ORD84.7%
- Republic Airways on SAV to ORD83.4%
- Envoy Air on SAV to ORD83.1%
- American Airlines on SAV to ORD72.8%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- 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.