Flight profile · United Airlines
UA218
Honolulu (HNL) to Chicago (ORD) · scheduled 5:15 PM – 6:18 AM
How UA218 performs
1,126 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
UA218 arrived on time 91.4% of the time, against 88.8% for all HNL → ORD flights, so this departure is 2.6 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 1.0 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 1,126 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If UA218 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where UA218 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA218 | 91.4% | 0.62% | -15 min | 3.0% | 1,126 |
| United Airlines on HNL → ORD | 90.4% | 0.59% | -14 min | 3.1% | 1,195 |
| All HNL → ORD flights | 88.8% | 0.58% | -14 min | 3.2% | 1,370 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why UA218 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA218 on HNL → 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 UA218 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA218 pushed back an average of 19 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 1 minute late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into HNL just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 1,116 of 1,119 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA218 | 15% | 23% | 8% |
| Network, same turn | 33% | 24% | 11% |
The schedule leaves a long gap on the ground, which gives a late aircraft room to catch up before this flight pushes back.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 3 to 6 hours. How often UA218’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often UA218 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 July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves HNL late, does that still matter by the time it reaches ORD?
UA218 pushes back an average of 4.1 minutes late and reaches the gate at ORD an average of 8.3 minutes early. The 12.4 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. It spends 18.6 minutes on the taxiways at HNL, 3.7 minutes longer than a typical HNL departure in the same hour.
On arrival at ORD, UA218 spends 9.9 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 7.9 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 11,251 departures from HNL scheduled in the clock hour UA218 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 UA218’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves HNL
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA218 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 11,251 departures from HNL are scheduled in the 5 PM–6 PM hour over the period, against 186,300 across the whole day.
UA218 is scheduled out of HNL at 5:15 PM, in the 5 PM–6 PM bank. Departures from HNL in that hour arrive on time 87.0% of the time against 85.3% across the airport’s whole day, so the hour UA218 leaves in is an ordinary one for HNL and explains nothing about its record either way.
The two airport figures cover every departure from HNL 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 UA218 run worse on particular days?
Thursday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 7.6 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 UA218 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| BOS→SJC Boston to San Jose | February 7, 2026 | 1 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA218 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.
11 min late
against a median of 15 min early
Percentiles over 1,126 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,126 records of UA218 operating HNL → 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
Analysis last recomputed