Airport month record
ORDDEC
Chicago O'Hare International in December 2025
- Departures
- 27,790
- Month
- December 2025
- National, same month
- 73.2%
- Carriers
- 12
Historical statistics for December 2025, not live status or a forecast for this year’s December. For today’s conditions at ORD, see live FAA status.
ORD in December draws a D. Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is an hour and a half behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 27,790 flights, of which United Airlines flew 7,305 at 67.6% on time.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the seven carriers covered here at 67.6% on time across 7,305 flights.
Key figures
On time
61.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 27,007 completed departures
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.53%
Nationally in December: 1.55%
Whole year
71.0%
ORD across all twelve months
These figures cover 27,790 departures from Chicago O'Hare International in December 2025. On time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the DOT's threshold, and the national comparison uses every US departure in the same month rather than the whole year.
Against the year
December next to ORD's other months
Against ORD's own year, December ran 10 points worse than the twelve-month rate of 71.0%, which makes it the worst of the twelve months in the data. Either side of it, November ran 73.3% on time and January 67.4%, so a trip moved by a few weeks would have landed in a better stretch.
| Month | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 2025 | 30,503 | 63.9% | 82 min | 2.60% | D |
| August 2025 | 30,090 | 73.9% | 80 min | 2.48% | C |
| September 2025 | 28,867 | 79.2% | 68 min | 0.42% | B+ |
| October 2025 | 31,096 | 74.7% | 64 min | 0.23% | C+ |
| November 2025 | 28,703 | 73.3% | 82 min | 5.59% | C− |
| December 2025 (this page) | 27,790 | 61.0% | 91 min | 2.53% | D |
| January 2026 | 25,131 | 67.4% | 79 min | 3.74% | C− |
| February 2026 | 25,538 | 73.7% | 67 min | 1.11% | C |
| March 2026 | 31,373 | 65.9% | 85 min | 5.71% | C− |
| April 2026 | 33,206 | 69.7% | 75 min | 3.54% | C− |
| May 2026 | 33,733 | 76.1% | 73 min | 1.01% | B |
| June 2026 | 31,374 | 71.3% | 80 min | 3.19% | C− |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave ORD in December
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am2,833 flights74.7%
- 8am–11am6,251 flights65.1%
- 11am–2pm4,564 flights64.5%
- 2pm–5pm5,168 flights58.5%
- 5pm–8pm4,849 flights52.8%
- 8pm–5am4,125 flights54.1%
Scale runs 45% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 52.8% on time, against 74.7% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 6,251 flights scheduled in it.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 69.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 44.1%. 25 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines ran best at ORD in December
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 67.6% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 50.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 5,818 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 7,305 | 67.6% | 70 min | 0.21% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 5,818 | 50.6% | 123 min | 4.47% | F− |
| Envoy Air | 4,402 | 61.9% | 71 min | 3.54% | D− |
| American Airlines | 4,153 | 64.1% | 83 min | 1.06% | D |
| Republic Airways | 3,612 | 62.8% | 87 min | 2.82% | D |
| Delta Air Lines | 758 | 54.5% | 81 min | 5.01% | F− |
| Spirit Airlines | 428 | 54.1% | 98 min | 5.37% | F− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 358 | 43.9% | 163 min | 7.82% | F− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 331 | 59.8% | 126 min | 7.25% | D− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 281 | 68.0% | 74 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 272 | 52.5% | 63 min | 4.04% | F− |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 72 | 67.1% | 89 min | 1.39% | C |
Spirit Airlines cancels 5.4% 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
Busiest routes out of ORD in December
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD to LGA · New York | 906 | 57.6% | 87 min | 4.53% | D− |
| ORD to LAX · Los Angeles | 568 | 67.7% | 81 min | 1.58% | C |
| ORD to BOS · Boston | 557 | 66.2% | 79 min | 0.90% | C+ |
| ORD to DCA · Washington | 555 | 67.7% | 79 min | 2.16% | C |
| ORD to MCO · Orlando | 552 | 68.1% | 72 min | 0.54% | C+ |
| ORD to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 551 | 68.9% | 74 min | 1.27% | C |
| ORD to IAH · Houston | 512 | 73.5% | 76 min | 0.59% | C+ |
| ORD to EWR · Newark | 512 | 62.0% | 69 min | 1.76% | D |
| ORD to MSP · Minneapolis | 500 | 50.1% | 96 min | 2.40% | F |
| ORD to ATL · Atlanta | 491 | 65.0% | 82 min | 3.46% | C− |
| ORD to PHX · Phoenix | 489 | 72.3% | 71 min | 0.41% | C+ |
| ORD to DTW · Detroit | 419 | 53.8% | 115 min | 2.86% | F |
| ORD to DEN · Denver | 417 | 65.5% | 73 min | 0.72% | C+ |
| ORD to MKE · Milwaukee | 405 | 53.1% | 108 min | 4.20% | F− |
| ORD to SFO · San Francisco | 392 | 66.2% | 70 min | 0.51% | C+ |
| ORD to MIA · Miami | 386 | 69.8% | 77 min | 1.30% | C |
| ORD to SEA · Seattle | 384 | 47.9% | 59 min | 2.08% | F |
| ORD to IND · Indianapolis | 381 | 65.8% | 122 min | 2.62% | C |
| ORD to BNA · Nashvillethin sample | 364 | 56.5% | 88 min | 1.37% | D |
| ORD to FLL · Fort Lauderdalethin sample | 362 | 67.9% | 93 min | 1.10% | C |
| ORD to CLE · Clevelandthin sample | 361 | 59.0% | 82 min | 4.43% | D− |
| ORD to LAS · Las Vegasthin sample | 358 | 69.5% | 82 min | 1.12% | C |
| ORD to CLT · Charlottethin sample | 355 | 68.6% | 94 min | 0.28% | C+ |
| ORD to CMH · Columbusthin sample | 349 | 62.1% | 94 min | 1.72% | D |
| ORD to CVG · Cincinnatithin sample | 346 | 59.5% | 87 min | 3.76% | D− |
Delay causes
What held ORD up in December
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 955,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 14%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 14% 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 comparison with the other months below is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 954,947 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.53%, against 1.55% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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. 18.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 10.0% 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.
What to do with this
Flying from ORD in December
For a December trip through ORD: plan on this being one of the airport's harder months. The 5am–8am departures held up best at 74.7% on time, and with 18.3% of arrivals an hour or more late, a connection here deserves more slack than the same trip in September would.
Related
Where to go next
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD), the whole year
- ORD in July63.9%
- ORD in August73.9%
- ORD in September79.2%
- ORD in October74.7%
- ORD in November73.3%
- ORD in January67.4%
- ORD in February73.7%
- ORD in March65.9%
- ORD in April69.7%
- ORD in May76.1%
- ORD in June71.3%
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.