OnTimeStats

Airline on-time performance

United Airlines

Data through May 2026Source: US DOT · BTS
← All airlines
On-time rate78%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay45 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled1.0%of scheduled flights

based on 814,574 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

Arrival performance

How this airline's flights land

System-wide arrival outcomes across every route this carrier flies.

78%of this carrier's flights arrived on time
(within 15 min of schedule)
  • On time78%
  • 15–59 min late13%
  • 1–2 hr late4%
  • 2 hr+ late3%
  • Cancelled or diverted1%

Arrival outcomes for this carrier's flights. Last segment = cancelled or diverted (diverted flights are not separately tracked for carriers).

Bad day: 1 in 10 flights arrives more than 45 min late.

Over time

On-time trend

By season

On-time rate by month

When flights don't go

Why flights were cancelled

  • Airline25%
  • Weather63%
  • Air traffic (NAS)12%
  • Security0%

Most cancellations here are attributed to Weather. Shares are among 8,257 cancellations with a reported cause (BTS reports causes from June 2003).

Route rankings

Most reliable

Best routes

FAT → DEN94%LIH → LAX93%LAX → LIH93%PSC → DEN93%CLE → RSW92%SMF → IAD92%RSW → CLE92%LIH → DEN92%SAT → IAD92%KOA → LAX91%

Least reliable

Worst routes

ORD → FSD49%ORD → ICT53%PSP → SFO57%ORD → ONT57%BTV → DEN58%ORD → RIC58%ORD → TYS58%ORD → EGE60%ORD → RNO60%ORD → TVC60%

Carrier lineage

Continental Airlines

Continental merged into United

Side by side

Compare this airline

Compare with Southwest Airlineshead-to-head on-time→Compare with Delta Air Lineshead-to-head on-time→Compare with American Airlineshead-to-head on-time→Compare with SkyWest Airlineshead-to-head on-time→

Keep exploring

Airports on its routes

SFO airporton-time performance→LAX airporton-time performance→LGA airporton-time performance→ORD airporton-time performance→

Keep exploring

Related guide

Best airlines for on-time arrivalsguide→

Methodology

A flight is on time when it arrives within 15 minutes of schedule — the US DOT / BTS standard. Median and p90(the “1-in-10 bad day”) are read from the full arrival-delay distribution, never averaged across periods.

Figures cover a carrier’s own BTS-coded flights. Cells below ~200 flights are flagged as limited data. All numbers are pre-computed from public BTS On-Time Performance data.