Route reliability record
AZO→ORD
Kalamazoo to Chicago
- Flights
- 990
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 122 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 990 AZO to ORD flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly AZO to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.5% of the time and Saturday flights 84.8%, against 79.7% for the route overall.
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
79.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 947 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.24%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Envoy
80.2% on time across 890 flights
These figures cover 990 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
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 | 890 | 80.2% | 77 min | 4.16% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 100 | 75.8% | 101 min | 5.00% | B− |
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 | 76.9% | 77.2% | 0.43% | 11am–2pm, Thu | — |
| 2. AZO → ORDKalamazoo to Chicago | Envoy Air | 76.9% | 80.2% | 4.16% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 3. GRR → ORDGrand Rapids to Chicago | American Airlines | 73.0% | 75.6% | 3.38% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 4. GRR → ORDGrand Rapids to Chicago | Republic Airways | 68.9% | 70.9% | 2.87% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 5. GRR → ORDGrand Rapids to Chicago | Envoy Air | 67.0% | 69.5% | 3.65% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am354 flights85.5%
- 8am–11am152 flights84.9%
- 11am–2pm136 flights80.3%
- 2pm–5pm118 flights73.6%
- 5pm–8pm230 flights69.6%
- 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 85.5% of the time, against 69.6% for the evening window. That is 16 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 354 flights scheduled in it.
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, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.3%. 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 43% of the 15,000 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.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%National Airspace System
- 18%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% 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 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 15,242 reported delay minutes.
34% 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 5,239 minutes out of 15,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.24%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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 8.1%. 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 74.4% on time across 990 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 990 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 4.24% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 947 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
AZO to ORD questions
How often is AZO to ORD delayed?
About 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 20.3% of the 990 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is AZO to ORD compared with the rest of the country?
79.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points 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 85.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.6%, 16 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 ORD80.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on AZO to ORD75.8%
- AZO to DTW, a related route76.8%
- LGA to ORD, a related route67.3%
- BOS to ORD, a related route72.7%
- Envoy Air on-time record80.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record75.8%
- 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.
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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.