Route reliability record
AUS→ORD
Austin to Chicago
- Flights
- 3,182
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 977 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 3,182 AUS to ORD flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,549 at 74.1% on time.
Best time to fly AUS to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 76.3%, against 72.4% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 49 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,094 completed flights
Avg delay
93 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.11%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
74.1% on time across 1,549 flights
These figures cover 3,182 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.2% 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 AUS to ORD
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,549 | 74.1% | 83 min | 1.29% | C |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 86 | 72.6% | 62 min | 2.33% | C |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 145 | 72.2% | 61 min | 0.69% | C+ |
| American Airlines | 1,206 | 70.7% | 108 min | 2.65% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 101 | 69.9% | 158 min | 5.94% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 95 | 69.7% | 71 min | 6.32% | C− |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 74.1%, 3 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on AUS 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 Austin 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 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. AUS → MDWAustin to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 74.8% | 75.5% | 0.89% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. AUS → ORDAustin to Chicago | United Airlines | 73.1% | 74.1% | 1.29% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 1878 07:00 |
| 3. AUS → ORDAustin to Chicago | American Airlines | 68.8% | 70.7% | 2.65% | 8am–11am, Wed | AA 1726 07:45 |
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 31 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am747 flights83.9%
- 8am–11am588 flights83.6%
- 11am–2pm688 flights74.6%
- 2pm–5pm535 flights59.2%
- 5pm–8pm578 flights57.4%
- 8pm–5am46 flights52.5%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 52.5% on time, against 83.9% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 747 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter AUS 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 AUS to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 83.9% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 52.5%, a wide gap of 31.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am83.9%
- 8–11am83.6%
- 11am–2pm74.6%
- 2–5pm59.2%
- 5–8pm57.4%
- 8pm–5am52.5%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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 79.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 302 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 76.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.7%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 80,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 80,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 41 to one. The split is drawn from 79,520 reported delay minutes.
35% 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 28,000 minutes out of 80,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 2.11% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.66%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.2% 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 977 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 71.9% on time across 3,185 flights, within half a point 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 3,182 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 79.1% on time and March 64.5%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 3,094 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
AUS to ORD questions
How often is AUS 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 27.6% of the 3,182 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 AUS to ORD?
United Airlines leads at 74.1% on time across 1,549 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 70.7%, a gap of 3 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 AUS to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 52.5%, 31 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 AUS to ORD?
March is the weakest month at 64.5% on time, compared with 79.1% in May. Across the year that is 15 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 AUS — the return legseparate record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- United Airlines on AUS to ORD74.1%
- Southwest Airlines on AUS to ORD72.2%
- American Airlines on AUS to ORD70.7%
- Frontier Airlines on AUS to ORD69.9%
- AUS to DEN, a related route78.9%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- AUS to DFW, a related route74.9%
- United Airlines on-time record74.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record72.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. AUS to ORD and ORD to AUS 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.