Airport month record

ORDOCT

Chicago O'Hare International in October 2025

Departures: 31,096
Month: October 2025
National, same month: 79.7%
Carriers: 12

Historical statistics for October 2025, not live status or a forecast for this year’s October. For today’s conditions at ORD, see live FAA status.

ORD in October sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 79.7%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 31,096 flights, of which Republic Airways flew 2,004 at 82.8% on time.

Republic Airways is the most reliable of the nine carriers covered here at 82.8% on time across 2,004 flights.

On time

74.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 30,965 completed departures

Avg delay

64 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.23%

Nationally in October: 0.53%

Whole year

71.0%

ORD across all twelve months

These figures cover 31,096 departures from Chicago O'Hare International in October 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

October next to ORD's other months

Against ORD's own year, October ran 4 points better than the twelve-month rate of 71.0%, which makes it number three of twelve months, best first. Cancellations were unusually low for ORD in October, at 0.23% against 2.68% across the year. Either side of it, September ran 79.2% on time and November 73.3%, so this month sits in line with its neighbours.

ORD month by month
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 (this page)	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 October

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 23 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am3,560 flights88.3%
8am–11am6,738 flights79.9%
11am–2pm5,044 flights78.0%
2pm–5pm5,991 flights70.5%
5pm–8pm5,407 flights67.9%
8pm–5am4,356 flights65.5%

Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.3% of the time, against 65.5% for the overnight window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 6,738 flights scheduled in it.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 68.6%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Carrier by carrier

Which airlines ran best at ORD in October

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 82.8% of the time; American Airlines manages 70.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 5,626 flights means less than a ten-point one.

Carriers at ORD in October 2025
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	9,150	76.1%	53 min	0.19%	B+
SkyWest Airlines	6,567	70.8%	70 min	0.05%	C+
American Airlines	5,626	70.8%	76 min	0.36%	C+
Envoy Air	4,712	79.1%	47 min	0.06%	B+
Republic Airways	2,004	82.8%	51 min	0.10%	B+
Delta Air Lines	1,077	73.6%	72 min	0.84%	C+
Southwest Airlines	422	80.0%	42 min	0.00%	B+
Spirit Airlines	405	80.7%	54 min	0.99%	B+
Frontier Airlines	387	71.2%	117 min	0.26%	C+
PSA Airlinesthin sample	352	64.6%	126 min	0.57%	D+
Alaska Airlinesthin sample	292	65.4%	50 min	2.40%	C
JetBlue Airwaysthin sample	102	77.0%	121 min	1.96%	B

The spread between Republic and American is 12 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 12 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

Route by route

Busiest routes out of ORD in October

Routes from ORD in October 2025
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
ORD to LGA · New York	1,025	63.7%	75 min	1.95%	D
ORD to BOS · Boston	695	57.6%	77 min	0.86%	D+
ORD to DEN · Denver	616	78.5%	74 min	0.16%	B+
ORD to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	607	75.4%	86 min	0.33%	B+
ORD to DCA · Washington	595	75.0%	58 min	0.67%	B+
ORD to MSP · Minneapolis	574	76.8%	77 min	0.00%	B+
ORD to ATL · Atlanta	569	78.2%	51 min	0.00%	B+
ORD to LAX · Los Angeles	565	72.6%	47 min	0.00%	C+
ORD to MCO · Orlando	535	80.1%	61 min	0.75%	B+
ORD to SFO · San Francisco	522	70.8%	60 min	0.38%	C+
ORD to DTW · Detroit	520	74.4%	64 min	0.00%	C+
ORD to IAH · Houston	518	78.7%	50 min	0.19%	B+
ORD to EWR · Newark	502	62.9%	72 min	0.40%	D+
ORD to SEA · Seattle	496	74.5%	50 min	0.60%	C+
ORD to LAS · Las Vegas	484	75.6%	66 min	0.00%	B+
ORD to BNA · Nashville	478	66.9%	68 min	0.00%	C+
ORD to MKE · Milwaukee	463	67.8%	106 min	0.00%	C+
ORD to PHL · Philadelphia	443	76.7%	100 min	0.00%	B+
ORD to CLE · Cleveland	441	75.5%	67 min	0.23%	B+
ORD to PHX · Phoenix	439	75.0%	53 min	0.23%	B+
ORD to CMH · Columbus	439	76.0%	53 min	0.23%	B+
ORD to CVG · Cincinnati	417	77.7%	53 min	0.00%	B+
ORD to IND · Indianapolis	414	81.1%	39 min	0.00%	B+
ORD to PIT · Pittsburgh	372	79.7%	43 min	0.27%	B+
ORD to GRR · Grand Rapidsthin sample	360	75.4%	51 min	0.28%	B+

Delay causes

What held ORD up in October

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 501,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
38%
Carrier
36%
National Airspace System
22%
Extreme weather
4%
Security
0%

38% 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 501,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 501,067 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.23%, below the national 0.53% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

8.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 6.3%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

What to do with this

Flying from ORD in October

For a October trip through ORD: this is one of the better months to be flying from here, 74.7% on time with 0.23% cancelled. That is a base rate for the month as a whole; a single storm can still spoil a particular day.

Chicago O'Hare International (ORD), the whole year
ORD in July63.9%
ORD in August73.9%
ORD in September79.2%
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.

Key figures