UA254

UA254 arrived on time 47.4% of the time, against 73.5% for all EWR → ORD flights, so this departure is 26.1 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 26.8 points worse.

UA254’s scheduled departure has moved during the period FlyerIntel has on file: it typically left around 6:45 PM earlier on, and around 6:15 PM more recently — a 30-minute shift, not the few minutes of day-to-day rounding every published schedule carries. Confirm the current departure time before booking around an older listing.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 732 operations, February 2024 – July 2026 · If UA254 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.

This flight runs unusually far behind the carrier's own average on this route, worse than 99% of 11,589 comparable flight numbers.

47.4% on time for this specific departure, against 74.2% for the same carrier's other flights on this route.

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · February 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.

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · February 2024 – July 2026

Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA254 on EWR → ORD. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering February 2024 – July 2026

When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA254 pushed back an average of 52 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 11 minutes late.

Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into EWR just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 573 of 710 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.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering February 2024 – July 2026

UA254 pushes back an average of 29.5 minutes late and arrives a further 7.2 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. It spends 32.3 minutes on the taxiways at EWR, 2.9 minutes longer than a typical EWR departure in the same hour.

On arrival at ORD, UA254 spends 25.2 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 7.4 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 24,541 departures from EWR scheduled in the clock hour UA254 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 UA254’s own. More on taxi time.

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · February 2024 – July 2026

UA254 is scheduled out of EWR at 6:25 PM, in the 6 PM–7 PM bank. Departures from EWR in that hour arrive on time 68.9% of the time against 77.7% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 8.8 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.

The two airport figures cover every departure from EWR 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 · February 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.

Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA254 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering February 2024 – July 2026

Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA254 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.

• UA546 EWR→ORD United Airlines on the same route, departs 7:45 PM, on time 64.0%
• UA1525 EWR→ORD United Airlines on the same route, departs 10:30 AM, on time 80.9%
• UA563 ORD→EWR Return trip, ORD to EWR, departs 7:10 AM, on time 90.3%