Route reliability record
CAK→ORD
Akron to Chicago
- Flights
- 2,088
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 344 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,088 CAK to ORD flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,479 at 72.9% on time.
Best time to fly CAK to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 75.1%, against 72.5% 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 48 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,974 completed flights
Avg delay
120 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.22%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
72.9% on time across 1,479 flights
These figures cover 2,088 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.0% 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 CAK to ORD
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 229 | 75.2% | 104 min | 3.06% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,479 | 72.9% | 125 min | 4.87% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 380 | 69.1% | 110 min | 7.89% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 7.9% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on CAK 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 Akron 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. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CLE → MDWCleveland to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 80.0% | 80.9% | 1.08% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. CLE → ORDCleveland to Chicago | United Airlines | 74.5% | 75.6% | 1.47% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 609 11:00 |
| 3. CLE → ORDCleveland to Chicago | American Airlines | 72.3% | 75.0% | 3.54% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. CLE → ORDCleveland to Chicago | Republic Airways | 71.8% | 76.9% | 6.64% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. CLE → ORDCleveland to Chicago | Envoy Air | 71.7% | 74.9% | 4.33% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 21 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am645 flights82.3%
- 8am–11am456 flights73.6%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm369 flights71.0%
- 5pm–8pm617 flights61.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.8% on time, against 82.3% 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 645 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CAK 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 CAK to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 82.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 61.8%, a wide gap of 20.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am82.3%
- 8–11am73.6%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm71.0%
- 5–8pm61.8%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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 54.8% on time, against 83.6% 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. May was the busiest month here, with 235 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 75.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 69.9%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 42% of the 65,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 28,000 of the 65,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 64,980 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 82.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.22%, 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
15.0% 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 344 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 63.6% on time across 2,089 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,088 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 delay figures matter less here than the 5.22% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 1,974 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CAK to ORD questions
How often is CAK 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 27.5% of the 2,088 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CAK to ORD?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 72.9% on time across 1,479 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 69.1%, a gap of 4 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 CAK to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 82.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.8%, 21 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 CAK to ORD?
December is the weakest month at 54.8% on time, compared with 83.6% in September. Across the year that is 29 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 CAK — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on CAK to ORD75.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on CAK to ORD72.9%
- PSA Airlines on CAK to ORD69.1%
- CAK to CLT, a related route79.9%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record75.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record72.9%
- PSA Airlines on-time record69.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. CAK to ORD and ORD to CAK 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.