Flight profile · United Airlines
UA1490
Portland (PDX) to Chicago (ORD) · scheduled 11:59 PM – 6:00 AM
How UA1490 performs
863 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
UA1490 arrived on time 86.2% of the time, against 80.9% for all PDX → ORD flights, so this departure is 5.3 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 1.6 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 863 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If UA1490 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
What stands out
How UA1490 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
Every day of the week performs about the same on this flight, steadier than 97% of 1,710 comparable flight numbers.
87.0% on time on the best day (Thursday) against 83.3% on the worst (Saturday).
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · The one thing about this specific departure that ranks most extreme against every other published flight number, out of everything FlyerIntel checks — shown only when something clears a real statistical bar, not for every flight.
Where UA1490 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1490 | 86.2% | 1.39% | -15 min | 4.7% | 863 |
| United Airlines on PDX → ORD | 84.6% | 0.85% | -8 min | 4.7% | 4,223 |
| All PDX → ORD flights | 80.9% | 1.08% | -6 min | 5.5% | 7,509 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why UA1490 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA1490 on PDX → ORD. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies UA1490 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA1490 pushed back an average of 32 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 3 minutes early.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into PDX just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 849 of 851 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA1490 | 28% | 55% | 6% |
| Network, same turn | 17% | 68% | 9% |
The schedule leaves a normal turn: enough time to clean and board if the aircraft is on time, little to spare if it is not.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 60 to 89 minutes. How often UA1490’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often UA1490 left 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves PDX late, does that still matter by the time it reaches ORD?
UA1490 pushes back an average of 7.1 minutes late and reaches the gate at ORD an average of 6.4 minutes early. The 13.5 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. Its 12.9 minutes on the taxiways at PDX is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at ORD, UA1490 spends 8.9 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is 8.9 minutes shorter than a typical ORD arrival (17.8 min).
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached ORD. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 5,116 departures from PDX scheduled in the clock hour UA1490 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at ORD (952,666 flights), not just UA1490’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves PDX
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA1490 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 5,116 departures from PDX are scheduled in the 11 PM–12 AM hour over the period, against 187,633 across the whole day.
UA1490 is scheduled out of PDX at 11:59 PM, in the 11 PM–12 AM bank. Departures from PDX in that hour arrive on time 79.9% of the time against 83.2% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 3.3 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from PDX to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
By day of week
Does UA1490 run worse on particular days?
Thursday is historically the most reliable day and Saturday the least, a gap of 3.7 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Days with fewer than 120 operations are not scored.
Other routes UA1490 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| DEN→EWR Denver to Newark | March 30, 2026 – April 3, 2026 | 5 | — |
| DEN→TPA Denver to Tampa | March 29, 2026 | 1 | — |
| IAH→AUS Houston to Austin | March 5–28, 2026 | 24 | — |
| LAS→IAH Las Vegas to Houston | March 5–28, 2026 | 24 | — |
| IAD→IAH Washington to Houston | September 2–24, 2025 | 23 | — |
| EWR→DEN Newark to Denver | September 1, 2025 | 1 | — |
| EWR→DFW Newark to Dallas–Fort Worth | June 1–25, 2025 | 25 | — |
| SFO→LAX San Francisco to Los Angeles | May 22, 2025 | 1 | — |
| EWR→ATL Newark to Atlanta | March 6–29, 2025 | 24 | — |
| RSW→EWR Fort Myers to Newark | January 7, 2025 – February 12, 2025 | 37 | — |
| MSY→DEN New Orleans to Denver | January 11, 2024 – March 30, 2024 | 56 | — |
| JAX→IAH Jacksonville to Houston | July 2, 2023 | 1 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA1490 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
26 min late
against a median of 15 min early
Percentiles over 863 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1693 | United Airlines | 90.8% | 8 min early | 708 |
| UA1490 this flight | United Airlines | 86.2% | 15 min early | 863 |
| AS324 | Alaska Airlines | 80.4% | 2 min early | 1,058 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA1490 is placed in the same ordering rather than left out of it; the rows around it are the most punctual departures on the route, not all of them, so this is a comparison and not a rank. Schedules change; confirm the departure still operates before booking around this.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 863 records of UA1490 operating PDX → ORD, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
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