Route reliability record
AZO→ORD
Kalamazoo to Chicago
- Flights
- 941
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 122 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 941 AZO to ORD flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly AZO to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.1%, against 78.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 894 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.89%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
79.3% on time across 717 flights
These figures cover 941 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.8% 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 AZO 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 717 | 79.3% | 80 min | 4.32% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 224 | 73.7% | 112 min | 6.70% | C− |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Kalamazoo 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. GRR → MDWGrand Rapids to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 78.9% | 79.2% | 0.43% | 5am–8am, Mon | — |
| 2. AZO → ORDKalamazoo to Chicago | Envoy Air | 75.9% | 79.3% | 4.32% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 3. GRR → ORDGrand Rapids to Chicago | American Airlines | 71.2% | 74.0% | 3.75% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 4. GRR → ORDGrand Rapids to Chicago | Republic Airways | 70.0% | 72.5% | 3.45% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 5. GRR → ORDGrand Rapids to Chicago | SkyWest Airlines | 67.8% | 70.4% | 3.75% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am357 flights83.7%
- 8am–11am95 flights82.0%
- 11am–2pm132 flights79.7%
- 2pm–5pm180 flights68.9%
- 5pm–8pm177 flights71.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 83.7% of the time, against 68.9% for the afternoon window. That is 15 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 357 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter AZO 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 AZO to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 83.7% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 68.9%, a wide gap of 14.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am83.7%
- 8–11am82.0%
- 11am–2pm79.7%
- 2–5pm68.9%
- 5–8pm71.7%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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.
December is the weak month at 67.5% on time, against 90.6% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.6%, a spread of 7 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 18,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 17,530 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 83.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.89%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
9.8% 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.
At 122 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.8% on time across 941 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 941 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: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.89% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 894 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
AZO to ORD questions
How often is AZO to ORD delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.0% of the 941 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is AZO to ORD compared with the rest of the country?
78.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on AZO to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 68.9%, 15 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 December delays on AZO to ORD?
December is the weakest month at 67.5% on time, compared with 90.6% in September. 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 AZO — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on AZO to ORD79.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on AZO to ORD73.7%
- AZO to DTW, a related route77.2%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record79.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record73.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. AZO to ORD and ORD to AZO are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed AZO to ORD’s on-time badge on your site
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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.