Carrier route record
AAEWR→ORD
American Airlines · Newark to Chicago
- Flights
- 924
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 15%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on EWR to ORD carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.8% 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 B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 924 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 533 at 72.2% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate American on EWR 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
76.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 876 completed flights
Avg delay
116 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.76%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
70.7%
Every carrier on EWR to ORD, 6,123 flights
These figures cover 924 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on EWR to ORD
American flew 924 of the 6,123 flights on EWR to ORD, about 15% of it. Its 76.8% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 76.8% to Spirit at 51.6%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 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.
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 American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 33 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am507 flights87.1%
- 8am–11am102 flights77.3%
- 11am–2pm6 flights—
- 2pm–5pm103 flights53.8%
- 5pm–8pm206 flights62.4%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.1% of the time, against 53.8% for the afternoon window. That is 33 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 507 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on EWR to ORD through the year
April is the best month on the calendar at 87.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 155 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.8%, a spread of 9 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on EWR to ORD runs when it is late
American on EWR to ORD often beats the schedule: 405 of 876 completed flights, 46%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When American on EWR to ORD is late it tends to be very late: 119 of its 203 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 63 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early405 flights46.2%
- Within 15 min268 flights30.6%
- 15–29 min late40 flights4.6%
- 30–59 min late44 flights5.0%
- 1–2 hours late56 flights6.4%
- 2+ hours late63 flights7.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 876 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
29 of 187 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. In the other direction, 45 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 American on EWR to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 30 April 2026, 18 hours 10 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 30 April 2026 | 18 hours 10 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 July 2026 | 16 hours 45 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 April 2026 | 10 hours 17 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 12 June 2026 | 10 hours 13 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 26 July 2026 | 8 hours | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 23,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 23,468 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 87.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.76%, 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
13.6% 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 59.0% on time across 926 flights, 18 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 18 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 924 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 American on EWR to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.76% 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. 876 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to ORD, every carrier
- American on ORD to EWR, the return leg
- 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%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.