Route reliability record
ALB→ORD
Albany to Chicago
- Flights
- 2,373
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 723 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 2,373 ALB to ORD flights, of which Envoy Air flew 625 at 83.1% on time.
Best time to fly ALB to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.5%, against 77.4% for the route overall.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 83.1% on time across 625 flights.
Key figures
On time
77.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,305 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
83.1% on time across 625 flights
These figures cover 2,373 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ALB to ORD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 83.1% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 72.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 366 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 625 | 83.1% | 100 min | 1.92% | B |
| United Airlines | 787 | 78.6% | 90 min | 1.40% | B |
| Republic Airways | 595 | 72.6% | 75 min | 4.20% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 366 | 72.2% | 96 min | 3.83% | C− |
Republic Airways cancels 4.2% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on ALB to ORD
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Albany to Chicago
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ALB → ORDAlbany to Chicago | Envoy Air | 81.5% | 83.1% | 1.92% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. ALB → ORDAlbany to Chicago | United Airlines | 77.5% | 78.6% | 1.40% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 2225 06:00 |
| 3. ALB → MDWAlbany to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 77.3% | 78.4% | 1.36% | 5am–8am, Mon | — |
| 4. ALB → ORDAlbany to Chicago | Republic Airways | 69.6% | 72.6% | 4.20% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. ALB → ORDAlbany to Chicago | SkyWest Airlines | 69.4% | 72.2% | 3.83% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am706 flights86.6%
- 8am–11am216 flights85.9%
- 11am–2pm544 flights81.4%
- 2pm–5pm365 flights65.1%
- 5pm–8pm439 flights65.5%
- 8pm–5am103 flights65.6%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.6% of the time, against 65.1% for the afternoon window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 706 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ALB to ORD by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ALB to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.6% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 65.1%, a wide gap of 21.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.6%
- 8–11am85.9%
- 11am–2pm81.4%
- 2–5pm65.1%
- 5–8pm65.5%
- 8pm–5am65.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
May is the best month on the calendar at 89.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 261 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.1%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 46,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%National Airspace System
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 18,000 minutes out of 46,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 46,135 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.61%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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 stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, 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.
The return leg runs 75.2% on time across 2,374 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 2,373 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ORD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 89.0% on time and March 66.3%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 2,305 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ALB to ORD questions
How often is ALB to ORD delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.6% of the 2,373 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ALB to ORD?
Envoy Air leads at 83.1% on time across 625 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 72.2%, a gap of 11 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ALB to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 65.1%, 22 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are March delays on ALB to ORD?
March is the weakest month at 66.3% on time, compared with 89.0% in May. Across the year that is 23 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to ALB — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on ALB to ORD83.1%
- United Airlines on ALB to ORD78.6%
- Republic Airways on ALB to ORD72.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on ALB to ORD72.2%
- ALB to BWI, a related route87.9%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- ALB to DCA, a related route67.3%
- Envoy Air on-time record83.1%
- United Airlines on-time record78.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record72.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. ALB to ORD and ORD to ALB are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.