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DelayAtlas

Carrier route record

OOFWAORD

SkyWest Airlines · Fort Wayne to Chicago

Flights
2,361
Period
July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route
88%
Carriers
3
C−GRADE

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

SkyWest on FWA to ORD carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 2,361 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so SkyWest on FWA to ORD runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 120 extra late arrivals.

Key figures

On time

65.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,247 completed flights

Avg delay

105 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

4.62%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

66.2%

Every carrier on FWA to ORD, 2,695 flights

These figures cover 2,361 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.5% 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 FWA to ORD

SkyWest flew 2,361 of the 2,695 flights on FWA to ORD, most of the route. Its 65.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 66.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 76.3% to PSA at 46.6%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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 FWA to ORD
AirlineFlightsOn timeAvg delayCancelledGrade
Envoy Airthin sample27276.3%67 min3.68%B−
SkyWest Airlines (this page)2,36165.6%105 min4.62%C−
PSA Airlinesthin sample6246.6%103 min6.45%F−

Flight by flight

SkyWest flight numbers on FWA 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 33 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–8am662 flights79.6%
  • 8am–11am168 flights75.9%
  • 11am–2pm524 flights70.7%
  • 2pm–5pm477 flights55.4%
  • 5pm–8pm494 flights47.7%
  • 8pm–5am36 flights46.7%

Scale runs 40% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 46.7% on time, against 79.6% 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 662 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

SkyWest on FWA to ORD through the year

On-time rate by calendar month62J64F68M56A67M76J61J66A76S63O73N51D
Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, December worst

December is the weak month at 50.5% on time, against 75.9% in September. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 265 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 71.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 57.3%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

On-time rate by day of the week65.7Mon71.0Tue65.3Wed68.0Thu62.3Fri69.4Sat57.3Sun
Monday: 65.7 percent on time. Tuesday: 71.0 percent on time. Wednesday: 65.3 percent on time. Thursday: 68.0 percent on time. Friday: 62.3 percent on time. Saturday: 69.4 percent on time. Sunday: 57.3 percent on time

Delay causes

Why SkyWest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 43% of the 81,000 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
    43%
  • Late-arriving aircraft
    27%
  • National Airspace System
    23%
  • Extreme weather
    7%
  • Security
    0%

The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, 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 35,000 of the 81,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 80,888 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations run at 4.62%, 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. 16.5% 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.

At 157 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 63.1% on time across 2,366 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 2,361 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.

What to do with this

Booking SkyWest on FWA to ORD

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.62% 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. 2,247 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.