MAD→ORD

Iberia flew 60% of the 1,147 flights between MAD and ORD in the DOT's count, with American Airlines on 458. Loads averaged 237 passengers a flight, which on this route means wide-body aircraft nearly full.

The DOT's international report puts 123 flights on the pair in July 2025, the busiest month of the window, and 38 in February 2026, the thinnest. A summer-to-winter swing of that size means the winter schedule is a different operation: fewer frequencies, so a cancellation leaves a longer wait for the next seat.

EUROCONTROL's figures for Madrid Barajas as a whole, every airline and every destination: 67.6% of departures and 78.0% of arrivals within 15 minutes of schedule from 1 January to 21 October 2026, with 93.1% of scheduled flights operated. The last seven days ran at 62.5% for departures, 5 points worse than the year so far. Air traffic flow management delay attributed to the airport averaged 0.4 minutes per arriving flight this year, 1.4 over the last week.

Every US route from Madrid Barajas, and its full punctuality record

Chicago O'Hare International is scored on this site from the DOT's domestic data: 70.8% of its 363,008 domestic departures arrived on time over the last twelve months, with delayed flights running a little over an hour late, and 2.80% were cancelled. Those are domestic flights, not this route, but an arriving transatlantic flight shares the same runways, the same weather and the same ground delay programmes, so a bad day at ORD reaches a flight from MAD just as surely. The airport's own page has the hour-by-hour and month-by-month detail, and its live FAA status appears above when the FAA has something to say.

Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics, hour by hour and month by month

Every flight that departs Madrid Barajas falls under Regulation (EC) 261/2004, whichever airline flies it and wherever it lands. If it arrives at Chicago O'Hare International three hours or more late, or is cancelled with under 14 days' notice, and the cause was within the airline's control, each passenger is owed €600 (€300 if the airline got you there under four hours late), on top of rebooking and care. Weather, air traffic control restrictions and strikes outside the airline are the usual exemptions. The return flight from ORD is covered only when the carrier is EU based. The sector is about 4,191 miles, 6,743 km, which puts it in the top distance band.

Delayed three hours or more? Check a claim with Compensair →

There is no grade to give MAD to ORD without a route record, and this site does not invent one. What the three sources support: about one departure a day in each direction, a choice of two carriers, a departure airport that gets 68% of its departures away on time and an arrival airport that runs 71% on time domestically. Leave two hours for any onward connection at ORD; immigration comes before the connecting flight.

• Madrid Barajas (MAD): every US route
• Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
• MAD to JFK, New York (JFK)3,154 flights
• MAD to MIA, Miami (MIA)2,708 flights
• MAD to BOS, Boston (BOS)1,650 flights
• MAD to DFW, Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW)1,282 flights
• LHR to ORD, from London5,762 flights
• FRA to ORD, from Frankfurt2,780 flights
• DUB to ORD, from Dublin2,325 flights
• CDG to ORD, from Paris2,073 flights
• Every Europe-to-US route and airport

Spain publishes no route-level punctuality, so this page cannot grade the route. The UK pages in this section can, because the CAA does.