Best airline from San Diego to Chicago

Most punctual on this route

B
United Airlines

81.97% on time across 1,672 flights · 0.54% cancelled

That is 4.7 points clear of American Airlines, the next best on this route at 77.27%.

Every airline on SAN to ORD, ranked

# Airline Flights On time Cancelled Grade
1 United Airlines 1,672 81.97% 0.54% B
2 American Airlines 1,386 77.27% 1.8% C
3 Alaska Airlines 688 73.45% 2.33% D
4 Frontier Airlines 61 38.33% 1.64%

Why this is worth checking per route

An airline's overall punctuality is an average across everywhere it flies, and averages hide the thing you are booking. A carrier can be middling nationally and the best option on this particular pair of airports — because of which slots it holds, what time of day it schedules, and which aircraft feeds the flight.

On SAN to ORD the spread between best and worst is 43.6 points. Both carriers fly the same corridor, into the same weather and the same air traffic control — so a gap that size is a fact about the airlines, not the route.

Punctuality is one dimension of a good airline and not the one most people would name first. It is, though, the only one measured the same way for everybody and published by someone with no stake in the answer. Full SAN to ORD record → · Best time of year to fly it →