Route reliability record
DSM→ORD
Des Moines to Chicago
- Flights
- 3,396
- Period
- September 2025 to August 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 1.9% 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 3,396 DSM to ORD flights, of which Republic Airways flew 611 at 78.9% on time.
Best time to fly DSM to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 78.0%, against 73.6% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 78.9% on time across 611 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,250 completed flights
Avg delay
97 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.06%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
78.9% on time across 611 flights
These figures cover 3,396 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% 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 DSM to ORD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 78.9% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 66.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,080 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 201 | 87.4% | 135 min | 5.47% | A− |
| Republic Airways | 611 | 78.9% | 92 min | 4.42% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 484 | 74.9% | 76 min | 3.10% | C− |
| United Airlines | 1,019 | 74.3% | 82 min | 1.67% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,080 | 66.8% | 116 min | 6.30% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 184 min | 0.00% | F+ |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 6.3% 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Des Moines to Chicago
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DSM → ORDDes Moines to Chicago | Republic Airways | 75.4% | 78.9% | 4.42% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 2. DSM → ORDDes Moines to Chicago | United Airlines | 73.1% | 74.3% | 1.67% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. DSM → ORDDes Moines to Chicago | Envoy Air | 72.6% | 74.9% | 3.10% | 5pm–8pm, Sat | — |
| 4. DSM → ORDDes Moines to Chicago | SkyWest Airlines | 62.6% | 66.8% | 6.30% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 28 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am650 flights85.3%
- 8am–11am675 flights81.7%
- 11am–2pm759 flights74.7%
- 2pm–5pm539 flights68.6%
- 5pm–8pm641 flights57.0%
- 8pm–5am132 flights66.9%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.0% on time, against 85.3% 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 759 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DSM 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 DSM to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 57.0%, a wide gap of 28.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.3%
- 8–11am81.7%
- 11am–2pm74.7%
- 2–5pm68.6%
- 5–8pm57.0%
- 8pm–5am66.9%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
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 78.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.4%, 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 84,000 reported delay minutes.
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 11% 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 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 83,508 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 85.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.06%, against 1.89% 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
11.4% 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.
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 70.8% on time across 3,399 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 3,396 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 delay figures matter less here than the 4.06% 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. 3,250 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.4% of the 3,396 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 DSM to ORD?
Republic Airways leads at 78.9% on time across 611 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 66.8%, a gap of 12 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 85.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 57.0%, 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 DSM to ORD87.4%
- Republic Airways on DSM to ORD78.9%
- Envoy Air on DSM to ORD74.9%
- United Airlines on DSM to ORD74.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on DSM to ORD66.8%
- DSM to DEN, a related route83.5%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- DSM to DFW, a related route74.3%
- American Airlines on-time record87.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record78.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record74.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.
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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.