Airport month record
ORDJUL
Chicago O'Hare International in July 2025
- Departures
- 30,503
- Month
- July 2025
- National, same month
- 71.1%
- Carriers
- 12
Historical statistics for July 2025, not live status or a forecast for this year’s July. For today’s conditions at ORD, see live FAA status.
ORD in July draws a D. About 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 30,503 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,078 at 71.4% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the nine carriers covered here at 71.4% on time across 1,078 flights.
Key figures
On time
63.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 29,576 completed departures
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.60%
Nationally in July: 2.45%
Whole year
71.0%
ORD across all twelve months
These figures cover 30,503 departures from Chicago O'Hare International in July 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
July next to ORD's other months
Against ORD's own year, July ran 7 points worse than the twelve-month rate of 71.0%, which makes it number eleven of twelve months, best first.
| Month | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 2025 (this page) | 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 | 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 July
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 37 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am3,549 flights86.2%
- 8am–11am6,366 flights76.7%
- 11am–2pm4,950 flights70.2%
- 2pm–5pm5,610 flights54.9%
- 5pm–8pm5,417 flights48.8%
- 8pm–5am4,611 flights49.7%
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 48.8% on time, against 86.2% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 6,366 flights scheduled in it.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 73.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 56.6%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines ran best at ORD in July
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 71.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 58.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 433 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 8,539 | 64.5% | 81 min | 1.43% | D |
| SkyWest Airlines | 6,477 | 61.3% | 88 min | 2.44% | D |
| American Airlines | 5,846 | 60.2% | 92 min | 4.53% | D− |
| Envoy Air | 4,519 | 67.4% | 58 min | 2.35% | C |
| Republic Airways | 2,015 | 70.1% | 76 min | 2.63% | C |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,078 | 71.4% | 99 min | 2.60% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 519 | 69.1% | 73 min | 1.54% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 433 | 58.5% | 59 min | 1.15% | D |
| Alaska Airlines | 365 | 68.2% | 53 min | 1.37% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 331 | 56.8% | 101 min | 3.93% | D− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 272 | 52.0% | 149 min | 6.62% | F− |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 109 | 67.0% | 106 min | 10.09% | C− |
American Airlines cancels 4.5% 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 July
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD to LGA · New York | 1,011 | 63.9% | 102 min | 6.43% | D− |
| ORD to LAX · Los Angeles | 687 | 68.5% | 75 min | 3.64% | C− |
| ORD to BOS · Boston | 673 | 63.9% | 71 min | 2.82% | D |
| ORD to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 650 | 63.2% | 100 min | 4.46% | D− |
| ORD to SEA · Seattle | 622 | 66.6% | 75 min | 1.29% | C |
| ORD to DCA · Washington | 589 | 58.7% | 129 min | 5.77% | D− |
| ORD to DEN · Denver | 583 | 65.8% | 96 min | 2.92% | C |
| ORD to ATL · Atlanta | 569 | 66.0% | 79 min | 2.28% | C |
| ORD to MSP · Minneapolis | 544 | 66.6% | 85 min | 2.02% | C |
| ORD to DTW · Detroit | 536 | 64.2% | 78 min | 2.61% | D |
| ORD to SFO · San Francisco | 534 | 64.2% | 71 min | 2.62% | D |
| ORD to IAH · Houston | 516 | 63.6% | 76 min | 2.13% | D |
| ORD to MCO · Orlando | 513 | 63.6% | 83 min | 0.78% | D+ |
| ORD to EWR · Newark | 498 | 54.1% | 106 min | 6.63% | F− |
| ORD to LAS · Las Vegas | 475 | 68.6% | 67 min | 1.47% | C |
| ORD to PHX · Phoenix | 441 | 63.6% | 69 min | 2.27% | D |
| ORD to CLE · Cleveland | 431 | 60.0% | 91 min | 4.18% | D− |
| ORD to BNA · Nashville | 419 | 56.2% | 80 min | 3.10% | D− |
| ORD to IND · Indianapolis | 409 | 65.9% | 73 min | 2.93% | C |
| ORD to PHL · Philadelphia | 404 | 55.2% | 137 min | 5.20% | D− |
| ORD to CMH · Columbus | 398 | 58.1% | 78 min | 2.76% | D |
| ORD to MKE · Milwaukee | 394 | 58.4% | 102 min | 3.81% | D− |
| ORD to CVG · Cincinnati | 393 | 63.2% | 63 min | 2.54% | D |
| ORD to CLT · Charlottethin sample | 347 | 64.5% | 84 min | 1.73% | D |
| ORD to MCI · Kansas Citythin sample | 342 | 59.9% | 87 min | 2.92% | D |
Delay causes
What held ORD up in July
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 876,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 876,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 876,372 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.60%, against 2.45% 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. 16.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 12.1% 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.
What to do with this
Flying from ORD in July
For a July trip through ORD: plan on this being one of the airport's harder months. The 5am–8am departures held up best at 86.2% on time, and with 16.0% 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 August73.9%
- ORD in September79.2%
- ORD in October74.7%
- ORD in November73.3%
- ORD in December61.0%
- 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.