Flight profile · United Airlines
UA1577
Chicago (ORD) to San Francisco (SFO) · scheduled 2:35 PM – 5:36 PM
How UA1577 performs
694 operations, May 2024 – July 2026.
UA1577 arrived on time 76.4% of the time, against 71.8% for all ORD → SFO flights, so this departure is 4.6 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 2.2 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 694 operations, May 2024 – July 2026 · If UA1577 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where UA1577 is right now
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1577 | 76.4% | 1.01% | -4 min | 10.5% | 694 |
| United Airlines on ORD → SFO | 74.2% | 1.01% | -4 min | 9.6% | 10,957 |
| All ORD → SFO flights | 71.8% | 1.14% | -3 min | 10.4% | 16,116 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · May 2024 – July 2026
Why UA1577 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
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA1577 on ORD → SFO. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering May 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies UA1577 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying UA1577 came in 15 or more minutes late on 10% of the departures where its previous flight is known. There are not enough departures in both groups to say how the flight left after a late one and after an on-time one.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into ORD just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 635 of 689 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 |
|---|---|
| UA1577 | 10% |
| Network, same turn | 17% |
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 UA1577’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s. There are not enough departures in both groups to compare how it left.
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 May 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves ORD late, does that still matter by the time it reaches SFO?
UA1577 pushes back an average of 22.3 minutes late and reaches the gate at SFO an average of 12.7 minutes late. The 9.7 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 26.9 minutes on the taxiways at ORD is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at SFO, UA1577 spends 7.0 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 about what any arrival at SFO spends on the ground before reaching the gate.
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 SFO. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 66,182 departures from ORD scheduled in the clock hour UA1577 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at SFO (436,060 flights), not just UA1577’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · May 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves ORD
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA1577 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 66,182 departures from ORD are scheduled in the 2 PM–3 PM hour over the period, against 952,802 across the whole day.
UA1577 is scheduled out of ORD at 2:35 PM, in the 2 PM–3 PM bank. Departures from ORD in that hour arrive on time 74.1% of the time against 74.5% across the airport’s whole day, so the hour UA1577 leaves in is an ordinary one for ORD and explains nothing about its record either way.
The two airport figures cover every departure from ORD 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 · May 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes UA1577 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SFO→SEA San Francisco to Seattle | September 25, 2025 – July 31, 2026 | 101 | 68.3% |
| ATL→ORD Atlanta to Chicago | May 21, 2026 – June 24, 2026 | 35 | — |
| SFO→SAN San Francisco to San Diego | January 6, 2026 – May 20, 2026 | 135 | 76.9% |
| CVG→ORD Cincinnati / Covington to Chicago | April 30, 2026 – May 20, 2026 | 18 | — |
| PWM→ORD Portland to Chicago | April 5–26, 2026 | 4 | — |
| RDU→ORD Raleigh–Durham to Chicago | March 5–28, 2026 | 21 | — |
| JAX→ORD Jacksonville to Chicago | February 12, 2026 – March 2, 2026 | 12 | — |
| DCA→ORD Washington to Chicago | March 6, 2025 – August 18, 2025 | 64 | — |
| SFO→PIT San Francisco to Pittsburgh | August 1–18, 2025 | 18 | — |
| SFO→DTW San Francisco to Detroit | May 22, 2025 – June 25, 2025 | 30 | — |
| OMA→ORD Omaha to Chicago | January 7, 2025 – February 12, 2025 | 27 | — |
| MCO→ORD Orlando to Chicago | December 19, 2024 – January 6, 2025 | 19 | — |
| SFO→LAS San Francisco to Las Vegas | December 19, 2024 – January 6, 2025 | 19 | — |
| AUS→ORD Austin to Chicago | May 23, 2024 – December 18, 2024 | 155 | 90.3% |
| ORD→BNA Chicago to Nashville | March 31, 2024 – May 22, 2024 | 49 | — |
| ORD→SLC Chicago to Salt Lake City | February 15, 2024 – March 30, 2024 | 45 | — |
| LGA→ORD New York to Chicago | March 7–29, 2024 | 20 | — |
| EWR→ROC Newark to Rochester | October 29, 2023 – February 14, 2024 | 107 | 84.6% |
| LAS→EWR Las Vegas to Newark | October 29–31, 2023 | 3 | — |
| IAD→AUS Washington to Austin | October 19–23, 2023 | 2 | — |
| ABQ→EWR Albuquerque to Newark | October 5–16, 2023 | 10 | — |
| IAD→BNA Washington to Nashville | September 5–28, 2023 | 24 | — |
| SNA→EWR Santa Ana to Newark | July 1, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 66 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA1577 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.
62 min late
against a median of 4 min early
UA1577 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 4 min early, but the worst tenth are 66 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 694 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering May 2024 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1878 | United Airlines | 79.1% | 9 min early | 731 |
| UA343 | United Airlines | 78.6% | 8 min early | 890 |
| UA1577 this flight | United Airlines | 76.4% | 4 min early | 694 |
| AA1253 | American Airlines | 73.0% | 3 min early | 722 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA1577 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 694 records of UA1577 operating ORD → SFO, 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
Analysis last recomputed