Airport month record
ORDMAR
Chicago O'Hare International in March 2026
- Departures
- 31,373
- Month
- March 2026
- National, same month
- 75.7%
- Carriers
- 12
Historical statistics for March 2026, not live status or a forecast for this year’s March. For today’s conditions at ORD, see live FAA status.
ORD in March carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.7% of scheduled flights never operate, against 2.9% 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 31,373 flights, of which Envoy Air flew 5,859 at 73.4% on time.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the ten carriers covered here at 73.4% on time across 5,859 flights.
Key figures
On time
65.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 29,468 completed departures
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.71%
Nationally in March: 2.90%
Whole year
70.8%
ORD across all twelve months
These figures cover 31,373 departures from Chicago O'Hare International in March 2026. 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
March next to ORD's other months
Against ORD's own year, March ran 5 points worse than the twelve-month rate of 70.8%, which makes it number ten of twelve months, best first. Cancellations are where March stands out: 5.71% of scheduled departures were called off, 2.0 times the airport's rate across the year. Either side of it, February ran 73.7% on time and April 69.7%, so a trip moved by a few weeks would have landed in a better stretch.
| Month | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 (this page) | 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− |
| July 2026 | 33,010 | 71.4% | 85 min | 4.18% | C− |
| August 2026 | 33,187 | 64.6% | 87 min | 2.31% | D |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave ORD in March
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 24 points, against 32 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am3,413 flights79.5%
- 8am–11am6,891 flights70.9%
- 11am–2pm4,769 flights69.6%
- 2pm–5pm5,878 flights64.3%
- 5pm–8pm5,736 flights55.6%
- 8pm–5am4,686 flights58.4%
Scale runs 45% to 85%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.6% on time, against 79.5% 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 6,891 flights scheduled in it.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 71.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 48.9%, a spread of 23 points.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines ran best at ORD in March
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 73.4% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 41.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 509 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 8,275 | 69.7% | 82 min | 2.71% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 6,197 | 59.4% | 94 min | 9.04% | D− |
| Envoy Air | 5,859 | 73.4% | 67 min | 5.34% | C− |
| American Airlines | 5,060 | 60.8% | 84 min | 4.86% | D− |
| Republic Airways | 3,231 | 68.8% | 79 min | 6.62% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 642 | 62.9% | 109 min | 7.94% | D− |
| Spirit Airlines | 509 | 41.1% | 85 min | 12.38% | F− |
| Frontier Airlines | 480 | 58.2% | 117 min | 6.46% | D− |
| Southwest Airlines | 434 | 61.2% | 86 min | 4.84% | D− |
| PSA Airlines | 370 | 55.2% | 117 min | 15.95% | D− |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 212 | 65.2% | 83 min | 0.94% | C+ |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 104 | 70.4% | 111 min | 5.77% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 15.9% 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 March
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD to LGA · New York | 996 | 54.6% | 89 min | 11.95% | F− |
| ORD to MCO · Orlando | 688 | 67.0% | 87 min | 4.80% | C− |
| ORD to BOS · Boston | 598 | 66.3% | 80 min | 5.18% | C− |
| ORD to DCA · Washington | 591 | 64.4% | 79 min | 4.91% | D− |
| ORD to PHX · Phoenix | 585 | 77.7% | 83 min | 2.91% | B |
| ORD to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 555 | 66.8% | 85 min | 3.78% | C− |
| ORD to LAX · Los Angeles | 549 | 74.6% | 83 min | 2.91% | C |
| ORD to MSP · Minneapolis | 535 | 63.6% | 87 min | 7.66% | D− |
| ORD to ATL · Atlanta | 515 | 63.5% | 86 min | 5.83% | D− |
| ORD to IAH · Houston | 512 | 72.8% | 100 min | 3.12% | C− |
| ORD to EWR · Newark | 510 | 70.0% | 82 min | 4.71% | C− |
| ORD to MIA · Miami | 497 | 64.6% | 78 min | 4.83% | D− |
| ORD to DTW · Detroit | 488 | 61.0% | 96 min | 6.56% | D− |
| ORD to LAS · Las Vegas | 487 | 72.4% | 75 min | 3.29% | C− |
| ORD to DEN · Denver | 485 | 71.2% | 93 min | 2.68% | C |
| ORD to RSW · Fort Myers | 469 | 67.4% | 74 min | 4.26% | C− |
| ORD to SFO · San Francisco | 459 | 74.5% | 84 min | 2.61% | C |
| ORD to IND · Indianapolis | 454 | 66.2% | 72 min | 5.95% | C− |
| ORD to MKE · Milwaukee | 450 | 59.9% | 95 min | 11.33% | D− |
| ORD to BNA · Nashville | 447 | 61.0% | 85 min | 6.49% | D− |
| ORD to CLE · Cleveland | 445 | 68.0% | 72 min | 4.27% | C− |
| ORD to CMH · Columbus | 441 | 72.4% | 73 min | 4.76% | C− |
| ORD to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 440 | 57.3% | 82 min | 5.91% | D− |
| ORD to CVG · Cincinnati | 408 | 61.3% | 86 min | 4.90% | D− |
| ORD to PHL · Philadelphia | 387 | 63.2% | 87 min | 4.39% | D− |
Delay causes
What held ORD up in March
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 850,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 22%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. Across 850,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 850,332 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 5.71%, against 2.90% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty 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.
15.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 9.5% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
What to do with this
Flying from ORD in March
For a March trip through ORD: plan on this being one of the airport's harder months. The 5am–8am departures held up best at 79.5% on time, and with 15.3% 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 September79.2%
- ORD in October74.7%
- ORD in November73.3%
- ORD in December61.0%
- ORD in January67.4%
- ORD in February73.7%
- ORD in April69.7%
- ORD in May76.1%
- ORD in June71.3%
- ORD in July71.4%
- ORD in August64.6%
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.