Route profile
ORD→SJC
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Chicago to San Jose, 1,829 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
September 2023 – July 2026
Better than 18% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 1,019 flights. How this is calculated · What counts as on time
ORD → SJC arrives on time 71.2% of the time; the return trip, SJC → ORD, arrives on time 92.4% of the time, a 21.2-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
ORD → SJC spends 29.8 minutes on the ground on a 1,829-mile trip: 25.9 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at ORD and 3.9 minutes from touchdown to gate at SJC.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering September 2023 – July 2026
What sets this route apart
Where ORD to SJC differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, September 2023 – July 2026.
Tuesday is the day ORD to SJC slips furthest against routes of similar length, 68.3% on time where they average 80.9%, 12.6 points lower. Against all other routes the gap is 13.3 points.
United Airlines’ flights on ORD to SJC arrive on time 71.1% of the time, 9.2 points below the 80.3% it manages on its routes of similar length. Against all other routes the gap is 8.8 points.
ORD to SJC against comparable routes
September 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weekday: Tuesday | 68.3% | routes of similar length | 80.9% | −12.6 pts | 139 here, 166,396 there |
| Airline: United Airlines | 71.1% | routes of similar length | 80.3% | −9.2 pts | 999 here, 255,086 there |
Each comparison pools the flights of other routes, with this route’s own left out. Similar length means within 15% of this route’s 1,829 miles, with at least 5 such routes. A bucket is set against the most comparable group that has enough flights: similar length, then the same origin (at least 3 routes), then all other routes. Hours, weekdays and months appear only where both sides have 120 completed flights, and airlines where both have 600. The gap must be at least 2 points and 2 standard errors, and only the largest gap each way is kept per measure. These are differences in the flights counted, not causes.
When it goes wrong
September 2023 – July 2026
64 min late
against a median of 3 min early
ORD → SJC has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 3 min early, but the worst tenth are 67 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 1,019 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at SJC after arriving from ORD.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 43% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 28% | High risk |
| 60 min | 19% | High risk |
| 90 min | 11% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 7.1% | Some risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 0.98% of the time and diverts 0.20% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 1,007 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 64 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 1,019 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Why ORD → SJC runs late
September 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for ORD → SJC. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on ORD → SJC, at 46.0%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,011 | 71.1% | 0.99% | -3 min | 11.3% |
Other ways to fly Chicago to San Francisco
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
| Route | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD→SFO Chicago to San Francisco | 16,116 | 71.8% | 1.14% | -3 min | 53 |
| ORD→SJC this route Chicago to San Jose | 1,019 | 71.2% | 0.98% | -3 min | 52 |
Flying to SJC from the Chicago area? Compare ORD, MDW for SJC, with the same test for what counts as a real difference.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Monday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 7.5 percentage points.
Reliability over time
September 2023 – July 2026
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 68.5% against 72.8% in the 12 months before — declining by 4.3 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,019 ORD → SJC flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering September 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed