Flight profile · United Airlines
UA609
Cleveland (CLE) to Chicago (ORD) · scheduled 11:00 AM – 11:34 AM
How UA609 performs
826 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
UA609 arrived on time 90.0% of the time, against 80.0% for all CLE → ORD flights, so this departure is 10.0 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 7.1 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 826 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If UA609 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 UA609 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight runs unusually far ahead of the CLE → ORD route as a whole, better than 90% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.
90.0% on time for this specific departure, against 80.0% for every CLE → ORD flight.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – 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 UA609 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
Ask for the position of UA609 right now, if receivers on the ground are hearing it. Nothing is requested until you press the button.
Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA609 | 90.0% | 2.06% | -12 min | 3.8% | 826 |
| United Airlines on CLE → ORD | 82.9% | 1.19% | -7 min | 5.8% | 6,065 |
| All CLE → ORD flights | 80.0% | 2.28% | -7 min | 7.8% | 11,745 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why UA609 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
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 UA609 on CLE → 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 UA609 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying UA609 came in 15 or more minutes late on 10% of the departures where its previous flight is known. There are not enough departures in both groups to say how the flight left after a late one and after an on-time one.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into CLE just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 747 of 809 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 |
|---|---|
| UA609 | 10% |
| Network, same turn | 17% |
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 UA609’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s. There are not enough departures in both groups to compare how it left.
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 CLE late, does that still matter by the time it reaches ORD?
UA609 pushes back an average of 3.7 minutes late and reaches the gate at ORD an average of 4.0 minutes early. The 7.8 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 14.3 minutes on the taxiways at CLE is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at ORD, UA609 spends 13.4 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 4.4 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 7,349 departures from CLE scheduled in the clock hour UA609 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 UA609’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves CLE
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA609 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 7,349 departures from CLE are scheduled in the 11 AM–12 PM hour over the period, against 126,883 across the whole day.
UA609 is scheduled out of CLE at 11:00 AM, in the 11 AM–12 PM bank. Departures from CLE in that hour arrive on time 85.1% of the time against 80.9% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 4.2 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from CLE 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.
Other routes UA609 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→MCO Chicago to Orlando | May 21, 2026 – July 31, 2026 | 72 | — |
| ORD→DEN Chicago to Denver | December 2, 2025 – April 29, 2026 | 48 | — |
| RIC→ORD Richmond to Chicago | March 7–28, 2026 | 4 | — |
| EWR→RDU Newark to Raleigh–Durham | January 6, 2026 – February 11, 2026 | 37 | — |
| DFW→EWR Dallas–Fort Worth to Newark | January 6, 2026 – February 11, 2026 | 27 | — |
| ORD→PHX Chicago to Phoenix | March 6, 2025 – September 24, 2025 | 203 | 86.2% |
| PHX→LAX Phoenix to Los Angeles | May 22, 2025 – July 31, 2025 | 66 | — |
| EWR→CLE Newark to Cleveland | May 23, 2024 – March 4, 2025 | 43 | — |
| ORD→IAH Chicago to Houston | September 26, 2024 – January 6, 2025 | 50 | — |
| IAH→SAN Houston to San Diego | December 19, 2024 – January 6, 2025 | 16 | — |
| IAH→DEN Houston to Denver | October 27, 2024 – December 2, 2024 | 37 | — |
| ORD→LAX Chicago to Los Angeles | March 31, 2024 – August 18, 2024 | 106 | 84.8% |
| ORD→EWR Chicago to Newark | March 7–30, 2024 | 24 | — |
| ORD→CLT Chicago to Charlotte | July 1, 2023 – March 6, 2024 | 128 | 74.6% |
| ORD→PHL Chicago to Philadelphia | January 9, 2024 – February 14, 2024 | 37 | — |
| SJC→ORD San Jose to Chicago | December 21, 2023 | 1 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA609 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.
14 min late
against a median of 12 min early
Percentiles over 826 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA609 this flight | United Airlines | 90.0% | 12 min early | 826 |
| UA1673 | United Airlines | 60.6% | 7 min late | 860 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA609 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 826 records of UA609 operating CLE → 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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