Carrier route record
OOCOS→ORD
SkyWest Airlines · Colorado Springs to Chicago
- Flights
- 821
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 82%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on COS to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 821 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so SkyWest on COS to ORD runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 43 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 798 completed flights
Avg delay
120 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.07%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.6%
Every carrier on COS to ORD, 1,001 flights
These figures cover 821 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.3% 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 COS to ORD
SkyWest flew 821 of the 1,001 flights on COS to ORD, most of the route. Its 73.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 80.6% to SkyWest at 73.3%. One 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 180 | 80.6% | 62 min | 1.11% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 821 | 73.3% | 120 min | 2.07% | C |
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 19 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–8am163 flights87.0%
- 8am–11am88 flights80.5%
- 11am–2pm568 flights68.1%
- 2pm–5pm2 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 68.1% on time against 87.0% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 568 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on COS to ORD through the year
July is the worst month at 60.0% on time, 25 points below May, the best at 85.2%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 90 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.2%. 15 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 52% of the 26,000 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.
- 52%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, 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 13,000 of the 26,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 25,560 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.07% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.73%.
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. 13.3% 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.
The 911 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 66.8% on time across 822 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 821 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 COS to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 821 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 73.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 798 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- COS to ORD, every carrier
- SkyWest on ORD to COS, the return leg
- United Airlines on COS to ORD80.6%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.