Flight profile · United Airlines
UA546
Newark (EWR) to Chicago (ORD) · scheduled 7:45 PM – 9:22 PM
How UA546 performs
602 operations, March 2024 – July 2026.
UA546 arrived on time 64.0% of the time, against 73.5% for all EWR → ORD flights, so this departure is 9.5 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 10.2 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 602 operations, March 2024 – July 2026 · If UA546 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 UA546 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight's worst arrivals run unusually far past its typical one, a bigger gap than 96% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.
A typical arrival is 2 min late, but the worst tenth run 107 minutes worse than that.
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 UA546 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA546 | 64.0% | 2.66% | 2 min | 16.7% | 602 |
| United Airlines on EWR → ORD | 74.2% | 2.18% | -4 min | 10.0% | 12,988 |
| All EWR → ORD flights | 73.5% | 2.88% | -5 min | 11.0% | 18,454 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · March 2024 – July 2026
Why UA546 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 UA546 on EWR → 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 UA546 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA546 pushed back an average of 60 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 9 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, 479 of 588 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA546 | 31% | 57% | 14% |
| Network, same turn | 23% | 40% | 9% |
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 90 minutes to 3 hours. How often UA546’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often UA546 left 15 or more minutes late is higher 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 EWR late, does that still matter by the time it reaches ORD?
UA546 pushes back an average of 31.7 minutes late and reaches the gate at ORD an average of 26.8 minutes late. The 4.9 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 28.7 minutes on the taxiways at EWR is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at ORD, UA546 spends 17.0 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 ORD 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 ORD. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 25,058 departures from EWR scheduled in the clock hour UA546 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 UA546’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · March 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves EWR
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA546 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 25,058 departures from EWR are scheduled in the 7 PM–8 PM hour over the period, against 387,621 across the whole day.
UA546 is scheduled out of EWR at 7:45 PM, in the 7 PM–8 PM bank. Departures from EWR in that hour arrive on time 66.9% of the time against 77.7% 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 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 · March 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes UA546 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAV→EWR Savannah to Newark | May 22, 2026 – July 31, 2026 | 69 | — |
| ORD→SYR Chicago to Syracuse | July 4, 2026 | 1 | — |
| LAS→EWR Las Vegas to Newark | September 25, 2025 – March 4, 2026 | 141 | 78.1% |
| ORD→IAD Chicago to Washington | November 29–30, 2025 | 2 | — |
| PHX→EWR Phoenix to Newark | June 27, 2024 – August 18, 2025 | 92 | 62.9% |
| BOS→ORD Boston to Chicago | June 26, 2025 – July 31, 2025 | 36 | — |
| SFO→DEN San Francisco to Denver | May 1–21, 2025 | 21 | — |
| CMH→ORD Columbus to Chicago | March 31, 2025 – April 30, 2025 | 23 | — |
| IAD→CLE Washington to Cleveland | March 30, 2025 | 1 | — |
| EWR→PBI Newark to West Palm Beach | March 8–29, 2025 | 4 | — |
| IAH→DCA Houston to Washington | March 6–28, 2025 | 20 | — |
| SFO→LAX San Francisco to Los Angeles | January 11, 2025 – February 8, 2025 | 5 | — |
| LGA→ORD New York to Chicago | October 1–26, 2024 | 26 | — |
| CVG→ORD Cincinnati / Covington to Chicago | August 20, 2024 – September 25, 2024 | 37 | — |
| ORD→IAH Chicago to Houston | September 1–25, 2024 | 25 | — |
| ORD→ABQ Chicago to Albuquerque | August 19–31, 2024 | 13 | — |
| DRO→DEN Durango to Denver | March 31, 2024 – May 1, 2024 | 32 | — |
| ORD→SAT Chicago to San Antonio | March 9–30, 2024 | 4 | — |
| EYW→IAD Key West to Washington | December 21, 2023 – March 6, 2024 | 77 | — |
| SAN→IAD San Diego to Washington | July 1, 2023 – December 20, 2023 | 173 | 90.1% |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA546 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.
109 min late
against a median of 2 min late
UA546 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 2 min late, but the worst tenth are 107 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 602 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1525 | United Airlines | 80.9% | 10 min early | 775 |
| UA546 this flight | United Airlines | 64.0% | 2 min late | 602 |
| UA254 | United Airlines | 47.4% | 17 min late | 732 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA546 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 602 records of UA546 operating EWR → 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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