Carrier performance at one airport
OO→ORD
SkyWest Airlines at Chicago O'Hare International
- Departures
- 76,556
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #10 of 12
SkyWest Airlines at Chicago carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 76,556 flights, of which JetBlue Airways flew 1,105 at 77.8% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, SkyWest Airlines runs 5 points behind the 70.9% weighted average across all carriers at ORD. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
65.9%
73,282 completed departures
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
3.84%
At ORD, this carrier only
Rank here
#10
Of 12 carriers clearing the floor at ORD
These figures cover 77,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Against the competition
Every carrier at ORD, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. JetBlue Airways arrives on time 77.8% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 59.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 3,385 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 1,105 | 77.8% | 91 min | 3.53% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 32,164 | 76.2% | 73 min | 3.56% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 57,088 | 76.1% | 62 min | 2.82% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 10,543 | 73.3% | 91 min | 2.68% | C |
| United Airlines | 99,843 | 73.1% | 71 min | 1.23% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 3,980 | 70.1% | 68 min | 1.31% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 3,253 | 69.0% | 62 min | 1.75% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 4,157 | 67.4% | 105 min | 3.44% | C− |
| American Airlines | 60,749 | 66.8% | 82 min | 2.66% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 76,556 | 65.9% | 88 min | 3.84% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines | 4,581 | 65.9% | 83 min | 4.91% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 3,385 | 59.9% | 131 min | 6.79% | D− |
PSA Airlines cancels 6.8% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Where SkyWest Airlines flies from ORD
SkyWest Airlines operates 25 routes out of ORD with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD to MKE · Milwaukee | 4,933 | 63.7% | 93 min | 4.64% | D− |
| ORD to SBN · South Bend | 2,692 | 62.5% | 87 min | 4.27% | D− |
| ORD to DTW · Detroit | 2,433 | 64.0% | 91 min | 3.41% | D− |
| ORD to FWA · Fort Wayne | 2,366 | 63.1% | 83 min | 4.27% | D− |
| ORD to OKC · Oklahoma City | 2,356 | 68.0% | 85 min | 3.10% | C− |
| ORD to FNT · Flint | 1,975 | 65.0% | 98 min | 4.10% | C− |
| ORD to MLI · Moline | 1,560 | 67.8% | 83 min | 5.38% | C− |
| ORD to LNK · Lincoln | 1,555 | 62.9% | 91 min | 3.02% | D− |
| ORD to CAK · Akron | 1,474 | 65.5% | 92 min | 4.68% | C− |
| ORD to BNA · Nashville | 1,467 | 61.0% | 89 min | 3.89% | D− |
| ORD to LEX · Lexington | 1,415 | 69.1% | 92 min | 2.97% | C |
| ORD to ICT · Wichita | 1,369 | 66.7% | 78 min | 2.48% | C |
| ORD to ATW · Appleton | 1,337 | 65.7% | 88 min | 5.39% | C− |
| ORD to PIA · Peoria | 1,290 | 65.6% | 75 min | 4.50% | C− |
| ORD to MSN · Madison | 1,266 | 67.0% | 97 min | 5.13% | C− |
| ORD to GRB · Green Bay | 1,234 | 61.2% | 85 min | 4.86% | D− |
| ORD to CHO · Charlottesville | 1,183 | 65.8% | 91 min | 4.14% | C− |
| ORD to DSM · Des Moines | 1,168 | 67.0% | 79 min | 5.14% | C− |
| ORD to DLH · Duluth | 1,133 | 63.7% | 79 min | 3.62% | D− |
| ORD to HSV · Huntsville | 1,115 | 66.3% | 104 min | 3.59% | C− |
| ORD to TVC · Traverse City | 1,115 | 64.0% | 107 min | 5.29% | D− |
| ORD to ASE · Aspen | 1,072 | 60.6% | 96 min | 2.99% | D |
| ORD to TUL · Tulsa | 1,057 | 73.5% | 73 min | 1.42% | C |
| ORD to FSD · Sioux Falls | 1,005 | 62.2% | 103 min | 3.68% | D− |
| ORD to FAR · Fargo | 1,005 | 62.6% | 85 min | 3.18% | D− |
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against 18 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am5,966 flights78.2%
- 8am–11am15,384 flights71.5%
- 11am–2pm13,511 flights70.2%
- 2pm–5pm18,109 flights62.5%
- 5pm–8pm12,184 flights55.9%
- 8pm–5am11,402 flights62.5%
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.9% on time, against 78.2% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 18,109 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
December is the weak month at 50.6% on time, against 77.4% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. May was the busiest month here, with 7,817 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 39%Carrier
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 16%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 16% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.6 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 2,186,089 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.84%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 15.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
76,556 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.84% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 73,282 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SkyWest Airlines at ORD
How often is SkyWest Airlines at ORD delayed?
About one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 34.1% of the 76,556 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SkyWest Airlines at ORD?
JetBlue Airways leads at 77.8% on time across 1,105 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 59.9%, a gap of 18 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SkyWest Airlines at ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 78.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.9%, 22 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are December delays on SkyWest Airlines at ORD?
December is the weakest month at 50.6% on time, compared with 77.4% in September. Across the year that is 27 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) all carriers
- ORD to MKE route record63.7%
- ORD to SBN route record62.5%
- ORD to DTW route record64.0%
- ORD to FWA route record63.1%
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.