Flight profile · United Airlines
UA2148
Washington (DCA) to Chicago (ORD) · scheduled 6:00 PM – 7:17 PM
How UA2148 performs
787 operations, January 2024 – July 2026.
UA2148 arrived on time 56.0% of the time, against 79.0% for all DCA → ORD flights, so this departure is 23.0 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 23.2 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 787 operations, January 2024 – July 2026 · If UA2148 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 UA2148 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight runs unusually far behind the carrier's own average on this route, worse than 99% of 11,589 comparable flight numbers.
56.0% on time for this specific departure, against 79.2% for the same carrier's other flights on this route.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · January 2024 – 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 UA2148 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2148 | 56.0% | 1.65% | 9 min | 16.7% | 787 |
| United Airlines on DCA → ORD | 79.2% | 1.99% | -6 min | 8.5% | 10,320 |
| All DCA → ORD flights | 79.0% | 2.47% | -8 min | 9.0% | 20,170 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · January 2024 – July 2026
Why UA2148 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA2148 on DCA → ORD. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering January 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies UA2148 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA2148 pushed back an average of 61 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 2 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into DCA just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 761 of 775 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA2148 | 36% | 70% | 8% |
| 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 UA2148’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often UA2148 left 15 or more minutes late is about the same as 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 January 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves DCA late, does that still matter by the time it reaches ORD?
UA2148 pushes back an average of 26.6 minutes late and arrives a further 5.8 minutes behind that. This departure loses ground between the two gates rather than recovering it, so a late pushback here tends to get worse on the way, not better. Its 20.8 minutes on the taxiways at DCA is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at ORD, UA2148 spends 22.9 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 5.1 minutes longer 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 19,288 departures from DCA scheduled in the clock hour UA2148 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 UA2148’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · January 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves DCA
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA2148 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 19,288 departures from DCA are scheduled in the 6 PM–7 PM hour over the period, against 435,076 across the whole day.
UA2148 is scheduled out of DCA at 6:00 PM, in the 6 PM–7 PM bank. Departures from DCA in that hour arrive on time 65.7% of the time against 76.5% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 10.8 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from DCA 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 · January 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes UA2148 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ORD→CVG Chicago to Cincinnati / Covington | May 21, 2026 – July 31, 2026 | 68 | — |
| ORD→SFO Chicago to San Francisco | April 2–27, 2026 | 16 | — |
| ORD→LAS Chicago to Las Vegas | October 2–25, 2025 | 15 | — |
| ORD→SAT Chicago to San Antonio | September 5, 2023 – August 18, 2025 | 359 | 63.3% |
| SFO→ORD San Francisco to Chicago | November 1, 2023 – June 26, 2024 | 61 | — |
| DEN→SAN Denver to San Diego | January 11, 2024 – February 12, 2024 | 10 | — |
| ORD→BZN Chicago to Bozeman | January 12, 2024 – February 10, 2024 | 10 | — |
| EWR→SAT Newark to San Antonio | July 1, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 66 | — |
| SAT→IAH San Antonio to Houston | August 1–26, 2023 | 12 | — |
| BOS→EWR Boston to Newark | July 1–31, 2023 | 22 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA2148 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.
108 min late
against a median of 9 min late
UA2148 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 9 min late, but the worst tenth are 99 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 787 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering January 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1793 | United Airlines | 93.6% | 12 min early | 845 |
| AA2304 | American Airlines | 89.4% | 15 min early | 952 |
| AA2903 | American Airlines | 84.1% | 15 min early | 879 |
| AA1200 | American Airlines | 78.0% | 11 min early | 663 |
| UA2148 this flight | United Airlines | 56.0% | 9 min late | 787 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA2148 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 787 records of UA2148 operating DCA → 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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