Route reliability record
FNT→ORD
Flint to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,866
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 223 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three 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 1,866 FNT to ORD flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly FNT to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 80.3% of the time and Saturday flights 72.0%, against 66.9% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 104 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
66.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,788 completed flights
Avg delay
124 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.13%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
66.9% on time across 1,866 flights
These figures cover 1,866 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 17.2% 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 FNT to ORD
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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,866 | 66.9% | 124 min | 4.13% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on FNT 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 Flint 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. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LAN → ORDLansing to Chicago | Envoy Air | 78.5% | 80.8% | 2.79% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. DTW → ORDDetroit to Chicago | Republic Airways | 77.6% | 81.8% | 5.08% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 3. DTW → ORDDetroit to Chicago | Envoy Air | 76.4% | 79.2% | 3.49% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 4. DTW → ORDDetroit to Chicago | United Airlines | 72.8% | 73.5% | 0.97% | 11am–2pm, Tue | UA 426 09:00 |
| 5. DTW → MDWDetroit to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 71.5% | 72.4% | 1.24% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
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 35 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am718 flights80.3%
- 8am–11am66 flights61.5%
- 11am–2pm185 flights55.8%
- 2pm–5pm399 flights73.0%
- 5pm–8pm383 flights45.3%
- 8pm–5am115 flights51.9%
Scale runs 35% to 85%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 45.3% on time, against 80.3% 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 718 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter FNT 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 FNT to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 80.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 45.3%, a wide gap of 35.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am80.3%
- 8–11am61.5%
- 11am–2pm55.8%
- 2–5pm73.0%
- 5–8pm45.3%
- 8pm–5am51.9%
best all US flightsScale 35% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
November is the best month on the calendar at 77.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 182 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 72.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 59.5%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 55% of the 73,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Carrier
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 55%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 41,000 of the 73,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 73,321 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.13%, 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
17.2% 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 223 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 64.5% on time across 1,866 flights, within 2 points 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 1,866 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 4.13% 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. 1,788 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FNT to ORD questions
How often is FNT to ORD delayed?
About 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 33.1% of the 1,866 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is FNT to ORD compared with the rest of the country?
66.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 10 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on FNT to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 80.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 45.3%, 35 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 March delays on FNT to ORD?
March is the weakest month at 55.1% on time, compared with 77.4% in November. Across the year that is 22 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 FNT — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- LAX to ORD, a related route76.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record66.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. FNT to ORD and ORD to FNT 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.