Flight number record
OO 5609
SkyWest Airlines · Columbia to Chicago
- Route
- COU → ORD
- Departs
- 08:00
- Flights
- 289
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s OO 5609, check with SkyWest Airlines. SkyWest Airlines flies under contract for larger airlines, so a ticket for this flight may show a different airline code and number.
OO 5609 lands a B−, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 289 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
76.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 279 completed flights
Avg delay
116 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.46%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
11.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 289 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When OO 5609 flies
OO 5609 is scheduled to leave Columbia (COU) at 08:00 local time and reach Chicago (ORD) at 09:30. That slot held for 233 of the 289 scheduled departures in the data, so the figures below describe one steady operation rather than a number that moved around the clock.
- Departs 08:00233 flights80.6%
- Departs 08:0936 flights12.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 08:00 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and OO 5609 runs 8 points worse at 76.0%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
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Against the route
OO 5609 next to COU to ORD
Every carrier on COU to ORD combined arrived on time 73.7% of the time across 2,054 flights, so OO 5609 is 2 points ahead of it. SkyWest flew 902 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 69.6% on time. Across its whole network SkyWest Airlines managed 78.7%, which this flight trails by 3 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OO 5609thin sample | 289 | 76.0% | 116 min | 3.46% | B− |
| All SkyWest Airlines on COU–ORD | 902 | 69.6% | 116 min | 4.88% | C− |
| All carriers on COU–ORD | 2,054 | 73.7% | 99 min | 3.65% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines, whole network | 855,406 | 78.7% | 88 min | 1.79% | B |
Across the year
OO 5609 quarter by quarter
OO 5609 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2026 at 87.8% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 71.8%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 72 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.
- Oct–Dec 202567 flights73.4%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights71.8%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights76.4%
- Jul–Sep 202641 flights87.8%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
By weekday, OO 5609 did best on Monday at 85.0% on time and worst on Sunday at 62.5%. Each day rests on about 41 flights, so a gap of 23 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late OO 5609 runs when it is late
The 67 late arrivals split 21 under half an hour, 15 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 31 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early62 flights22.2%
- Within 15 min150 flights53.8%
- 15–29 min late21 flights7.5%
- 30–59 min late15 flights5.4%
- 1–2 hours late12 flights4.3%
- 2+ hours late19 flights6.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 279 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 41 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 3 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 29 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at ORD.
The worst days
Worst days for OO 5609
The latest arrival of the period was on 18 December 2025, 15 hours 4 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 18 December 2025 | 15 hours 4 minutes | Carrier |
| 31 January 2026 | 11 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 May 2026 | 7 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 November 2025 | 6 hours 2 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 June 2026 | 5 hours 36 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why OO 5609 runs late
Carrier accounts for 47% of the 7,791 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 18%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 14% 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 2.4 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 7,791 delay minutes reported on OO 5609.
Cancellations run at 3.46%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
11.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The same number turns up on three other city pairs in the data, including ABE to ORD (23), DTW to IAH (4) and SFO to AUS (3), but none flew often enough under OO 5609 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to COU to ORD only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 289 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.
What to do with this
Booking OO 5609
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on OO 5609: 3.46% of its 289 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs close to two hours, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- COU to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to COU, the return direction
- Envoy Air 3655 on the same route86.3%
- SkyWest Airlines 5869 on the same route66.3%
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record
- Every SkyWest Airlines flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
A flight number here means SkyWest Airlines’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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.