Carrier route record
AADEN→ORD
American Airlines · Denver to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,469
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 24%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DEN 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, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 1,469 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 3,756 at 71.4% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on DEN to ORD runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 46 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,433 completed flights
Avg delay
124 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.04%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
71.1%
Every carrier on DEN to ORD, 6,161 flights
These figures cover 1,469 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.8% 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
American against every carrier on DEN to ORD
American flew 1,469 of the 6,161 flights on DEN to ORD, about 24% of it. Its 73.0% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 74.0% to Southwest at 63.7%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 71.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 63.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 482 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 125 | 74.0% | 60 min | 0.80% | C+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,469 | 73.0% | 124 min | 2.04% | C |
| United Airlines | 3,756 | 71.4% | 79 min | 0.75% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 329 | 68.6% | 96 min | 1.22% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 482 | 63.7% | 63 min | 0.62% | D+ |
United leads Southwest by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on DEN to ORD
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 36 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am372 flights87.9%
- 8am–11am225 flights80.3%
- 11am–2pm350 flights74.6%
- 2pm–5pm226 flights65.9%
- 5pm–8pm296 flights51.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 51.8% on time, against 87.9% 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 372 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DEN to ORD through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 80.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 155 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.0%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 48,000 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
44% 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 48,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 48,002 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, 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 18,000 of the 48,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.04% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.41%.
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. 12.8% 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 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. 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 66.5% on time across 1,471 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,469 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on DEN to ORD
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 80.1% on time and March 64.8%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,433 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to ORD, every carrier
- American on ORD to DEN, the return leg
- Envoy Air on DEN to ORD74.0%
- United Airlines on DEN to ORD71.4%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to ORD68.6%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to ORD63.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.