Carrier route record
MQEWR→ORD
Envoy Air · Newark to Chicago
- Flights
- 657
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 11%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Envoy Air.
Envoy on EWR to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 657 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 735 at 77.8% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Envoy on EWR to ORD runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 44 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 620 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.48%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
71.5%
Every carrier on EWR to ORD, 6,039 flights
These figures cover 657 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.9% 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
Envoy against every carrier on EWR to ORD
Envoy flew 657 of the 6,039 flights on EWR to ORD, about 11% of it. Its 73.2% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 77.8% to Republic at 52.8%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 77.8% of the time; United Airlines manages 71.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 4,389 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 735 | 77.8% | 108 min | 3.81% | B− |
| Envoy Air (this page) | 657 | 73.2% | 89 min | 5.48% | C− |
| United Airlines | 4,389 | 71.1% | 76 min | 2.26% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 156 | 53.8% | 102 min | 16.67% | F− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 102 | 52.8% | 82 min | 11.76% | F− |
American Airlines cancels 3.8% 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 Envoy runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 16 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am126 flights75.4%
- 11am–2pm227 flights75.2%
- 2pm–5pm253 flights73.0%
- 5pm–8pm51 flights59.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.6% on time, against 75.4% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 253 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Envoy on EWR to ORD through the year
May is the best month on the calendar at 94.9% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 75 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.3% on time and Saturday the weakest at 64.7%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Envoy runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 15,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%National Airspace System
- 17%Extreme weather
- 7%Carrier
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 17% 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 2.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 14,714 reported delay minutes.
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.
Cancellations run at 5.48%, 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. 11.9% 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.
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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.3% on time across 657 flights, 6 points above 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 657 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 Envoy on EWR to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.48% 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. 620 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to ORD, every carrier
- Envoy on ORD to EWR, the return leg
- American Airlines on EWR to ORD77.8%
- United Airlines on EWR to ORD71.1%
- Spirit Airlines on EWR to ORD53.8%
- Republic Airways on EWR to ORD52.8%
- Envoy Air 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.