Carrier route record
UATPA→ORD
United Airlines · Tampa to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,403
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 44%
- Carriers
- 7
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on TPA 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, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,403 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on TPA 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
75.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,390 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.50%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.8%
Every carrier on TPA to ORD, 3,214 flights
These figures cover 1,403 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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 TPA to ORD
United flew 1,403 of the 3,214 flights on TPA to ORD, about 44% of it. Its 75.0% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 100.0% to Frontier at 62.3%. Five 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,403 | 75.0% | 75 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 1,140 | 73.2% | 96 min | 1.93% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 281 | 69.1% | 87 min | 3.20% | C− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 214 | 68.1% | 57 min | 0.93% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 173 | 62.3% | 139 min | 5.20% | D− |
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 29 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–8am273 flights86.0%
- 8am–11am191 flights88.0%
- 11am–2pm368 flights83.3%
- 2pm–5pm413 flights58.9%
- 5pm–8pm156 flights63.2%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.0% of the time, against 58.9% for the afternoon window. That is 29 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 413 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on TPA to ORD through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 89.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 150 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.2%. 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 59% of the 26,000 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.
- 59%National Airspace System
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
59% 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 15,000 minutes out of 26,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 25,993 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.50%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,012 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 78.4% on time across 1,403 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,403 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 TPA to ORD
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 89.4% on time and March 63.4%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,390 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- TPA to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to TPA, the return leg
- American Airlines on TPA to ORD73.2%
- Spirit Airlines on TPA to ORD69.1%
- Southwest Airlines on TPA to ORD68.1%
- Frontier Airlines on TPA to ORD62.3%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.