Route reliability record
EWR→ORD
Newark to Chicago
- Flights
- 6,123
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 719 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 6,123 EWR to ORD flights, of which American Airlines flew 924 at 76.8% on time.
Best time to fly EWR to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 74.6%, against 70.7% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 76.8% on time across 924 flights.
Key figures
On time
70.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,868 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.90%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
76.8% on time across 924 flights
These figures cover 6,123 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.4% 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 EWR to ORD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 76.8% of the time; United Airlines manages 70.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 4,415 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 924 | 76.8% | 116 min | 4.76% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 533 | 72.2% | 84 min | 6.19% | C− |
| United Airlines | 4,415 | 70.3% | 80 min | 2.83% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 102 | 52.8% | 82 min | 11.76% | F− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 149 | 51.6% | 102 min | 16.78% | F− |
Envoy Air cancels 6.2% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on EWR to ORD
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Newark to Chicago
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. HPN → ORDWhite Plains to Chicago | Envoy Air | 74.9% | 78.1% | 4.10% | 5am–8am, Sat | MQ 3496 07:10 |
| 2. EWR → ORDNewark to Chicago | American Airlines | 73.1% | 76.8% | 4.76% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. JFK → ORDNew York to Chicago | Republic Airways | 71.9% | 76.3% | 5.78% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 4. JFK → ORDNew York to Chicago | American Airlines | 69.3% | 73.1% | 5.17% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 5. EWR → ORDNewark to Chicago | United Airlines | 68.3% | 70.3% | 2.83% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1875 11:25 |
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 31 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,300 flights84.3%
- 8am–11am1,124 flights78.7%
- 11am–2pm959 flights74.5%
- 2pm–5pm1,132 flights63.3%
- 5pm–8pm1,080 flights53.8%
- 8pm–5am528 flights62.8%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.8% on time, against 84.3% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 1,300 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter EWR 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 EWR to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 53.8%, a wide gap of 30.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.3%
- 8–11am78.7%
- 11am–2pm74.5%
- 2–5pm63.3%
- 5–8pm53.8%
- 8pm–5am62.8%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 80.5% 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 552 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 74.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.4%, 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 146,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%National Airspace System
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 61,000 minutes out of 146,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 146,097 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 84.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.90%, 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
12.4% 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.
The 719 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.
The return leg runs 69.8% on time across 6,126 flights, within about a point 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 6,123 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 3.90% 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. 5,868 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
EWR to ORD questions
How often is EWR to ORD delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.3% of the 6,123 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 EWR to ORD?
American Airlines leads at 76.8% on time across 924 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 70.3%, a gap of 7 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 EWR to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 53.8%, 31 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 October delays on EWR to ORD?
October is the weakest month at 60.2% on time, compared with 80.5% in September. Across the year that is 20 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 EWR — the return legseparate record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- American Airlines on EWR to ORD76.8%
- Envoy Air on EWR to ORD72.2%
- United Airlines on EWR to ORD70.3%
- Republic Airways on EWR to ORD52.8%
- Spirit Airlines on EWR to ORD51.6%
- EWR to MCO, a related route77.9%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- EWR to ATL, a related route76.9%
- American Airlines on-time record76.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record72.2%
- United Airlines on-time record70.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. EWR to ORD and ORD to EWR 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.