Carrier route record

YXBHM→ORD

Republic Airways · Birmingham to Chicago

Flights: 256
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 23%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.

Republic on BHM to ORD earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 256 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Republic's BHM to ORD record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 70 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

84.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 253 completed flights

Avg delay

71 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.17%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.4%

Every carrier on BHM to ORD, 1,137 flights

These figures cover 256 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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

Republic against every carrier on BHM to ORD

Republic flew 256 of the 1,137 flights on BHM to ORD, about 23% of it. Its 84.6% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 100.0% to SkyWest at 55.2%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on BHM to ORD
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
PSA Airlinesthin sample	2	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
Republic Airways (this page)thin sample	256	84.6%	71 min	1.17%	B
Envoy Air	771	78.0%	79 min	1.43%	B
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	108	55.2%	112 min	2.78%	D

Departure window

When Republic runs best on this route

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 256 flights.

5am–8am81 flights86.4%
8am–11am17 flights—
11am–2pm139 flights86.1%
2pm–5pm19 flights—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 80% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5am–8am window is the strongest at 86.4% on time. The full set of windows spans half a point.

Across the year

Republic on BHM to ORD through the year

Jul–Sep 2025124 flights93.5%
Oct–Dec 202546 flights75.6%
Jan–Mar 202685 flights76.2%
Apr–Jun 20261 flights—

Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 84.6% on time across 256 flights.

Republic on BHM to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.5% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 75.6%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 85 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 94.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.0%. 20 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Republic runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 2,767 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
45%
National Airspace System
40%
Extreme weather
10%
Carrier
5%

45% 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 2,767 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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 2,767 reported delay minutes.

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 1,112 minutes out of 2,767, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations sit at 1.17% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

5.1% 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.

The 584 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg runs 82.8% on time across 255 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 256 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.

What to do with this

Booking Republic on BHM to ORD

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 256 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 84.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 253 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures