Route reliability record
ANC→ORD
Anchorage to Chicago
- Flights
- 787
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,846 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route 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 787 ANC to ORD flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 773 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.27%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
80.8% on time across 438 flights
These figures cover 787 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ANC to ORD
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 438 | 80.8% | 70 min | 1.83% | B |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 211 | 74.6% | 40 min | 0.47% | C+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 138 | 70.1% | 53 min | 0.72% | C+ |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 787 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am787 flights77.2%
Scale runs 70% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 77.2% on time across 787 flights. Red-eyes fly into empty airspace and empty gates, and they are the first rotation of the aircraft's day rather than the last. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 787 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
August is the worst month at 72.5% on time, 16 points below September, the best at 88.0%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 155 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.3% on time and Saturday the weakest at 69.9%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 9,972 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
- 0%Extreme weather
46% 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 9,972 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 46 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 9,972 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.27% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.51%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.0% 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.
At 2,846 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.8% on time across 786 flights, 3 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 787 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ORD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 787 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 77.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 773 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ANC to ORD questions
How often is ANC 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 22.8% of the 787 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ANC to ORD compared with the rest of the country?
77.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
Does the departure time change the odds on ANC to ORD?
Not by much in this data. Every departure window falls within half a point of the others, so there is no hour worth rearranging a trip for. The overall rate of 77.2% is the figure to plan against.
How bad are August delays on ANC to ORD?
August is the weakest month at 72.5% on time, compared with 88.0% in September. Across the year that is 16 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 ANC — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- United Airlines on ANC to ORD80.8%
- Alaska Airlines on ANC to ORD74.6%
- American Airlines on ANC to ORD70.1%
- ANC to SEA, a related route85.5%
- LGA to ORD, a related route67.3%
- ANC to FAI, a related route89.0%
- United Airlines on-time record80.8%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record74.6%
- American Airlines on-time record70.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. ANC to ORD and ORD to ANC 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.