Route reliability record
DEN→ORD
Denver to Chicago
- Flights
- 6,109
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 888 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 6,109 DEN to ORD flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,473 at 73.3% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 75.4%, against 71.8% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 55 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,006 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.11%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
73.3% on time across 1,473 flights
These figures cover 6,109 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.2% 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 DEN to ORD
The two carriers here are closely matched: about 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 129 | 74.8% | 60 min | 0.78% | C+ |
| American Airlines | 1,473 | 73.3% | 119 min | 1.83% | C |
| United Airlines | 3,885 | 71.9% | 82 min | 0.82% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 301 | 69.7% | 56 min | 0.33% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 321 | 64.1% | 83 min | 2.18% | D |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 73.3%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN 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.
- United 286511:1579.2% · 365 flights
- United 232909:3584.1% · 365 flights
- United 102315:2059.8% · 364 flights
- United 61713:2568.8% · 364 flights
- United 137706:0090.0% · 363 flights
- American 277107:1687.9% · 327 flights
- United 225819:1071.2% · 274 flights
- United 243007:4587.2% · 269 flights
- United 141117:5447.9% · 266 flights
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Denver 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. 1 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DEN → MDWDenver to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 72.9% | 74.1% | 1.64% | 5am–8am, Wed (route) | — |
| 2. DEN → ORDDenver to Chicago | American Airlines | 72.0% | 73.3% | 1.83% | 5am–8am, Sat | AA 2771 07:16 |
| 3. DEN → ORDDenver to Chicago | United Airlines | 71.3% | 71.9% | 0.82% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1377 06:00 |
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 31 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,111 flights88.2%
- 8am–11am943 flights82.3%
- 11am–2pm1,238 flights72.6%
- 2pm–5pm1,058 flights60.6%
- 5pm–8pm1,245 flights56.9%
- 8pm–5am514 flights73.0%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.9% on time, against 88.2% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 1,245 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN 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 DEN to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 56.9%, a wide gap of 31.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.2%
- 8–11am82.3%
- 11am–2pm72.6%
- 2–5pm60.6%
- 5–8pm56.9%
- 8pm–5am73.0%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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.
August is the worst month at 61.3% on time, 18 points below February, the best at 79.1%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 616 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 75.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.9%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 150,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%National Airspace System
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 150,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 149,833 reported delay minutes.
37% 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 55,000 minutes out of 150,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.11% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.57%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.2% 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.
The 888 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.
The return leg runs 74.3% on time across 6,118 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 6,109 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 79.1% on time and August 61.3%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 6,006 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to ORD questions
How often is DEN 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 28.2% of the 6,109 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to ORD?
American Airlines leads at 73.3% on time across 1,473 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 71.9%, a gap of about a point. 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 DEN to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 56.9%, 31 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 August delays on DEN to ORD?
August is the weakest month at 61.3% on time, compared with 79.1% in February. Across the year that is 18 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 DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on DEN to ORD74.8%
- American Airlines on DEN to ORD73.3%
- United Airlines on DEN to ORD71.9%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to ORD69.7%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to ORD64.1%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- Envoy Air on-time record74.8%
- American Airlines on-time record73.3%
- United Airlines on-time record71.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. DEN to ORD and ORD to DEN 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.