Carrier route record
OOCID→ORD
SkyWest Airlines · Cedar Rapids to Chicago
- Flights
- 812
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 30%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on CID to ORD carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three 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 812 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 965 at 75.8% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so SkyWest on CID to ORD runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 120 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
65.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 774 completed flights
Avg delay
115 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.56%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.1%
Every carrier on CID to ORD, 2,715 flights
These figures cover 812 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.9% 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
SkyWest against every carrier on CID to ORD
SkyWest flew 812 of the 2,715 flights on CID to ORD, about 30% of it. Its 65.6% on time is 7 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 86.7% to SkyWest at 65.6%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 126 | 86.7% | 58 min | 4.76% | A− |
| Envoy Air | 965 | 75.8% | 70 min | 2.69% | B |
| United Airlines | 457 | 75.4% | 78 min | 2.19% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 354 | 66.9% | 79 min | 6.21% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 812 | 65.6% | 115 min | 4.56% | C− |
No carrier stands out. Envoy tops the table at 75.8%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 25 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–8am216 flights69.3%
- 8am–11am160 flights70.9%
- 11am–2pm219 flights67.8%
- 2pm–5pm120 flights66.1%
- 5pm–8pm81 flights45.5%
- 8pm–5am16 flights—
Scale runs 35% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 45.5% on time, against 70.9% for the 8am–11am 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 219 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on CID to ORD through the year
July is the worst month at 54.8% on time, 30 points below September, the best at 84.3%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. March was the busiest month here, with 145 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 75.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 60.0%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 46% of the 31,000 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.
- 46%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 14,000 of the 31,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 30,666 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 70.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.56%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 16.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 196 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 64.0% on time across 813 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. 812 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 SkyWest on CID to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.56% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 774 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CID to ORD, every carrier
- SkyWest on ORD to CID, the return leg
- American Airlines on CID to ORD86.7%
- Envoy Air on CID to ORD75.8%
- United Airlines on CID to ORD75.4%
- Republic Airways on CID to ORD66.9%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.