Carrier route record
UASRQ→ORD
United Airlines · Sarasota to Chicago
- Flights
- 617
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 62%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on SRQ 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, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 617 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so United on SRQ to ORD runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 63 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 602 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.62%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
68.5%
Every carrier on SRQ to ORD, 999 flights
These figures cover 617 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% 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 SRQ to ORD
United flew 617 of the 999 flights on SRQ to ORD, most of the route. Its 71.3% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 68.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 72.5% to SkyWest at 0.0%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 121 | 72.5% | 70 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 617 | 71.3% | 84 min | 1.62% | C |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 217 | 63.1% | 73 min | 3.69% | D− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 42 | 47.6% | 81 min | 0.00% | F+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 0.0% | 109 min | 0.00% | F+ |
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 28 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–8am20 flights—
- 8am–11am131 flights89.8%
- 11am–2pm104 flights74.3%
- 2pm–5pm350 flights61.8%
- 5pm–8pm12 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.8% of the time, against 61.8% for the afternoon window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 350 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on SRQ to ORD through the year
June is the worst month at 53.3% on time, 31 points below February, the best at 84.7%. 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 90 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 75.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.5%. 12 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 54% of the 15,000 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.
- 54%National Airspace System
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
54% 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 7,835 minutes out of 15,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 14,545 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.62% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.81%.
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. 11.3% 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 1,050 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 79.4% on time across 617 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 617 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 SRQ to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 617 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 71.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 602 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SRQ to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to SRQ, the return leg
- Envoy Air on SRQ to ORD72.5%
- American Airlines on SRQ to ORD63.1%
- 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.