Route reliability record
DSM→ORD
Des Moines to Chicago
- Flights
- 3,403
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 299 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 3,403 flights, of which Republic Airways flew 565 at 77.9% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 77.9% on time across 565 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,257 completed flights
Avg delay
97 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.11%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
77.9% on time across 565 flights
These figures cover 3,403 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.2% 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
Which airline is most reliable on DSM to ORD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 77.9% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 66.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,167 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 263 | 84.7% | 145 min | 5.70% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 565 | 77.9% | 85 min | 4.60% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 464 | 76.9% | 72 min | 2.59% | B |
| United Airlines | 943 | 73.2% | 78 min | 1.70% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,167 | 66.6% | 116 min | 6.08% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 184 min | 0.00% | F+ |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 6.1% 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.
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 28 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am659 flights84.6%
- 8am–11am685 flights81.1%
- 11am–2pm735 flights74.7%
- 2pm–5pm576 flights67.9%
- 5pm–8pm658 flights56.2%
- 8pm–5am90 flights69.0%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.2% on time, against 84.6% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 735 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 60.9% on time, against 81.8% 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. April was the busiest month here, with 370 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.1%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 85,000 reported delay minutes.
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 14%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 14% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 84,806 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 84.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.11%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.2% 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 299 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 runs 71.0% on time across 3,405 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.
The sample behind these figures is 3,403 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 this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.11% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 3,257 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DSM to ORD questions
How often is DSM to ORD delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.9% of the 3,403 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DSM to ORD?
Republic Airways leads at 77.9% on time across 565 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 66.6%, a gap of 11 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 DSM to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 56.2%, 28 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 DSM to ORD?
December is the weakest month at 60.9% on time, compared with 81.8% in September. Across the year that is 21 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 DSM — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- American Airlines on-time record84.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record77.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record76.9%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. DSM to ORD and ORD to DSM are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.