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DelayAtlas

Carrier route record

OOFARORD

SkyWest Airlines · Fargo to Chicago

Flights
1,008
Period
July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route
49%
Carriers
2
CGRADE

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.

SkyWest on FAR to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 1,008 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so SkyWest on FAR to ORD runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 84 extra late arrivals.

Key figures

On time

69.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 976 completed flights

Avg delay

121 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.58%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

72.2%

Every carrier on FAR to ORD, 2,068 flights

These figures cover 1,008 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.9% 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

SkyWest against every carrier on FAR to ORD

SkyWest flew 1,008 of the 2,068 flights on FAR to ORD, about 49% of it. Its 69.2% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 75.1% to SkyWest at 69.2%.

Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.

On-time performance by carrier on FAR to ORD
AirlineFlightsOn timeAvg delayCancelledGrade
Envoy Air1,06075.1%77 min2.64%B
SkyWest Airlines (this page)1,00869.2%121 min2.58%C

Flight by flight

SkyWest flight numbers on FAR to ORD

Departure window

When SkyWest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

  • 5am–8am249 flights67.8%
  • 8am–11am133 flights68.2%
  • 11am–2pm235 flights74.3%
  • 2pm–5pm277 flights69.3%
  • 5pm–8pm114 flights62.0%
  • 8pm–5am

Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.0% on time, against 74.3% for the 11am–2pm 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 277 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

SkyWest on FAR to ORD through the year

On-time rate by calendar month61J73F62M61A73M78J61J69A84S88O70N51D
Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.October best, December worst

December is the weak month at 51.1% on time, against 87.5% in October. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 114 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 74.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 63.2%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

On-time rate by day of the week67.6Mon74.7Tue71.5Wed69.4Thu63.2Fri73.3Sat65.3Sun
Monday: 67.6 percent on time. Tuesday: 74.7 percent on time. Wednesday: 71.5 percent on time. Thursday: 69.4 percent on time. Friday: 63.2 percent on time. Saturday: 73.3 percent on time. Sunday: 65.3 percent on time

Delay causes

Why SkyWest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 45% of the 37,000 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.

  • Carrier
    45%
  • National Airspace System
    33%
  • Late-arriving aircraft
    17%
  • Extreme weather
    6%
  • Security
    0%

The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 16,000 of the 37,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 36,506 reported delay minutes.

33% 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 12,000 minutes out of 37,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations run at 2.58%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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. 15.9% 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 557 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 62.6% on time across 1,005 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,008 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 SkyWest on FAR to ORD

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,008 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 69.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 976 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Related

Where to go next

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.