Carrier route record
YXDSM→ORD
Republic Airways · Des Moines to Chicago
- Flights
- 565
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 17%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on DSM to ORD lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 565 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 464 at 76.9% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on DSM to ORD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 539 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.60%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.1%
Every carrier on DSM to ORD, 3,403 flights
These figures cover 565 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% 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
Republic against every carrier on DSM to ORD
Republic flew 565 of the 3,403 flights on DSM to ORD, about 17% of it. Its 77.9% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 84.7% to PSA at 0.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 76.9% 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 (this page) | 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
When Republic runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 26 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am186 flights81.5%
- 8am–11am58 flights87.7%
- 11am–2pm183 flights82.0%
- 2pm–5pm97 flights64.5%
- 5pm–8pm40 flights61.5%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.5% on time, against 87.7% for the 8am–11am 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 186 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on DSM to ORD through the year
December is the weak month at 59.8% on time, against 97.6% in May. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 117 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.9% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 71.4%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
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 10,000 reported delay minutes.
- 30%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Extreme weather
- 18%Carrier
Extreme weather accounts for 23% 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 3.7 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 10,052 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.60%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.6% 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 75.6% on time across 566 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 565 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 Republic on DSM to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.60% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 539 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DSM to ORD, every carrier
- Republic on ORD to DSM, the return leg
- American Airlines on DSM to ORD84.7%
- Envoy Air on DSM to ORD76.9%
- United Airlines on DSM to ORD73.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on DSM to ORD66.6%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.