Flight number record

MQ 4256

Envoy Air · Chicago to Albany

Route: ORD → ALB
Departs: 08:15
Flights: 294
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s MQ 4256, check with Envoy Air. Envoy Air flies under contract for larger airlines, so a ticket for this flight may show a different airline code and number.

MQ 4256 lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 294 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.

On time

77.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 292 completed flights

Avg delay

55 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.68%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

7.5%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 294 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Schedule

When MQ 4256 flies

MQ 4256 flies ORD to ALB without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:15, used on 48 of 294 flights, with 20:50 (35 flights) and 08:10 (30 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 08:1548 flights16.3%
Departs 20:5035 flights11.9%
Departs 08:1030 flights10.2%

Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.

A 08:15 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and MQ 4256 runs 6 points worse at 77.7%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

MQ 4256 next to ORD to ALB

Every carrier on ORD to ALB combined arrived on time 75.7% of the time across 2,304 flights, so MQ 4256 is 2 points ahead of it. Envoy flew 756 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.1% on time. Across its whole network Envoy Air managed 80.2%, which this flight trails by 3 points.

MQ 4256 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
MQ 4256thin sample	294	77.7%	55 min	0.68%	B+
All Envoy Air on ORD–ALB	756	79.1%	54 min	2.38%	B
All carriers on ORD–ALB	2,304	75.7%	66 min	2.47%	B
Envoy Air, whole network	315,435	80.2%	67 min	2.30%	B

Across the year

MQ 4256 quarter by quarter

MQ 4256 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 92.4% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 57.6%, a swing of 35 points on roughly 74 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Jul–Sep 202588 flights83.0%
Oct–Dec 202567 flights71.2%
Jan–Mar 202660 flights57.6%
Apr–Jun 202679 flights92.4%

Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, MQ 4256 did best on Wednesday at 84.6% on time and worst on Monday at 68.2%. Each day rests on about 42 flights, so a gap of 16 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why MQ 4256 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 3,587 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
52%
National Airspace System
20%
Carrier
16%
Extreme weather
13%

Extreme weather accounts for 13% 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 quarterly figures above are the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 3,587 delay minutes reported on MQ 4256.

Cancellations are rare at 0.68%, below the national 1.81% 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.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

7.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. 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.

The 723 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

MQ 4256 is not only a ORD to ALB flight. It also flew ALB to ORD (260 flights, 82.6% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 294 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

Other routes flown as MQ 4256
Also flown as	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
ALB to ORDthin sample	260	82.6%	79 min	0.77%	B+

What to do with this

Booking MQ 4256

For a booking, read MQ 4256 as 77.7% on time with 0.68% cancelled over 294 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.

Where to go next

A flight number here means Envoy Air’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.

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