Flight profile · United Airlines
UA2389
New York (LGA) to Chicago (ORD) · scheduled 6:10 AM – 8:05 AM
How UA2389 performs
827 operations, March 2024 – July 2026.
UA2389 arrived on time 93.5% of the time, against 75.0% for all LGA → ORD flights, so this departure is 18.5 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 17.6 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 827 operations, March 2024 – July 2026 · If UA2389 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 UA2389 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight runs unusually far ahead of the LGA → ORD route as a whole, better than 99% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.
93.5% on time for this specific departure, against 75.0% for every LGA → ORD flight.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · March 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 UA2389 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2389 | 93.5% | 1.69% | -11 min | 1.1% | 827 |
| United Airlines on LGA → ORD | 75.9% | 2.94% | -6 min | 10.5% | 13,750 |
| All LGA → ORD flights | 75.0% | 3.39% | -7 min | 11.3% | 33,927 |
UA2389 has cancelled 1.69% of its scheduled departures (14 of 827), against 3.39% for all LGA → ORD flights — this specific departure cancels 1.7 percentage points less often than the route as a whole. Different flight numbers on the same route can carry different aircraft, crews and schedules, so this is a fact about UA2389 specifically, not about the route it flies.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · March 2024 – July 2026
Why UA2389 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
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
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA2389 on LGA → ORD. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering March 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies UA2389 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
UA2389 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 8.3 hours on the ground at LGA, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA2389 pushed back an average of 0 minutes early; when it came in on time or early, an average of 4 minutes early.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into LGA just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 794 of 813 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA2389 | 43% | 5% | 2% |
| Network, same turn | 29% | 12% | 9% |
A night on the ground absorbs most of a late arrival, so a late inbound matters far less on a turn this long than on a same-day one.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 6 hours or more, usually overnight. How often UA2389’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often UA2389 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 March 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves LGA late, does that still matter by the time it reaches ORD?
UA2389 pushes back an average of 2.0 minutes early and reaches the gate at ORD an average of 7.3 minutes early. The 5.3 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 17.2 minutes on the taxiways at LGA, 2.1 minutes shorter than a typical LGA departure in the same hour.
On arrival at ORD, UA2389 spends 19.7 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 1.8 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 32,995 departures from LGA scheduled in the clock hour UA2389 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 UA2389’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · March 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves LGA
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA2389 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 32,995 departures from LGA are scheduled in the 6 AM–7 AM hour over the period, against 456,467 across the whole day.
UA2389 is scheduled out of LGA at 6:10 AM, in the 6 AM–7 AM bank. Departures from LGA in that hour arrive on time 91.1% of the time against 78.3% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 12.8 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from LGA 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 · March 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes UA2389 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→CLE Chicago to Cleveland | October 26, 2025 – July 31, 2026 | 238 | 81.4% |
| ORD→AUS Chicago to Austin | October 27, 2024 – February 9, 2026 | 56 | — |
| ORD→RSW Chicago to Fort Myers | July 1, 2023 – October 25, 2025 | 716 | 85.1% |
| RSW→EWR Fort Myers to Newark | May 22, 2025 – June 25, 2025 | 29 | — |
| ORD→JAC Chicago to Jackson | February 13, 2025 – March 5, 2025 | 21 | — |
| ORD→OMA Chicago to Omaha | May 2–22, 2024 | 18 | — |
| ROC→ORD Rochester to Chicago | September 5, 2023 – March 6, 2024 | 94 | 89.1% |
| IAD→ORD Washington to Chicago | July 1, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 59 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA2389 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.
8 min late
against a median of 11 min early
Percentiles over 827 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering March 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2389 this flight | United Airlines | 93.5% | 11 min early | 827 |
| UA623 | United Airlines | 86.9% | 13 min early | 971 |
| UA1310 | United Airlines | 86.5% | 13 min early | 907 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA2389 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 827 records of UA2389 operating LGA → 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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