Carrier route record
YXDTW→ORD
Republic Airways · Detroit to Chicago
- Flights
- 453
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 8%
- Carriers
- 8
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on DTW to ORD lands a B−, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 453 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 946 at 79.2% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, Republic's DTW to ORD record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 45 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 429 completed flights
Avg delay
101 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.08%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.2%
Every carrier on DTW to ORD, 6,014 flights
These figures cover 453 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Republic against every carrier on DTW to ORD
Republic flew 453 of the 6,014 flights on DTW to ORD, about 8% of it. Its 81.8% on time is 10 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of eight carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 90.2% to Spirit at 0.0%. Three 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 79.2% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 68.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,563 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 47 | 90.2% | 142 min | 12.77% | A− |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 453 | 81.8% | 101 min | 5.08% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 946 | 79.2% | 89 min | 3.49% | B− |
| United Airlines | 827 | 73.5% | 76 min | 0.97% | C+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,156 | 69.9% | 81 min | 3.20% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 2,563 | 68.5% | 98 min | 3.12% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 20 | 60.0% | 103 min | 0.00% | D+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 0.0% | 1287 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Envoy Air cancels 3.5% 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.
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 29 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am156 flights90.0%
- 8am–11am54 flights80.8%
- 11am–2pm8 flights—
- 2pm–5pm115 flights78.8%
- 5pm–8pm34 flights61.3%
- 8pm–5am86 flights77.3%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.3% on time, against 90.0% 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 156 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on DTW to ORD through the year
- Jul–Sep 202526 flights—
- Oct–Dec 2025143 flights74.2%
- Jan–Mar 202679 flights85.5%
- Apr–Jun 2026107 flights85.9%
- Jul–Sep 202698 flights81.2%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 81.8% on time across 453 flights.
Republic on DTW to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 85.9% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 74.2%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 113 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.9% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 75.0%, a spread of 14 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Republic on DTW to ORD runs when it is late
Republic on DTW to ORD often beats the schedule: 178 of 429 completed flights, 41%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When Republic on DTW to ORD is late it tends to be very late: 42 of its 78 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 23 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early178 flights41.5%
- Within 15 min173 flights40.3%
- 15–29 min late21 flights4.9%
- 30–59 min late15 flights3.5%
- 1–2 hours late19 flights4.4%
- 2+ hours late23 flights5.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 429 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
8 of 62 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 13% of them. In the other direction, 24 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at ORD.
The worst days
Worst days for Republic on DTW to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 April 2026, 14 hours 8 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 2 April 2026 | 14 hours 8 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 November 2025 | 6 hours 20 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 April 2026 | 6 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 November 2025 | 4 hours 47 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 September 2025 | 3 hours 52 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
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 7,860 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,067 of the 7,860 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 7,860 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 90.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.08%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
9.8% 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 235 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 79.2% on time across 454 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 453 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 DTW to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.08% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 429 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to ORD, every carrier
- Republic on ORD to DTW, the return leg
- Envoy Air on DTW to ORD79.2%
- United Airlines on DTW to ORD73.5%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to ORD69.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on DTW to ORD68.5%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.