Carrier route record
AAGRR→ORD
American Airlines · Grand Rapids to Chicago
- Flights
- 532
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 13%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on GRR to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a B−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 2.2 hours behind schedule. That rests on 532 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 661 at 70.9% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on GRR 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
75.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 513 completed flights
Avg delay
133 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.38%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
68.3%
Every carrier on GRR to ORD, 4,038 flights
These figures cover 532 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.9% 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
American against every carrier on GRR to ORD
American flew 532 of the 4,038 flights on GRR to ORD, about 13% of it. Its 75.6% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 68.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 75.6% to PSA at 0.0%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 70.9% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 64.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 837 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 532 | 75.6% | 133 min | 3.38% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 661 | 70.9% | 76 min | 2.87% | C |
| Envoy Air | 931 | 69.5% | 67 min | 3.65% | C− |
| United Airlines | 1,075 | 65.1% | 73 min | 1.30% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 837 | 64.5% | 105 min | 3.23% | D− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 0.0% | 690 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Envoy Air cancels 3.6% 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 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 34 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am300 flights78.7%
- 8am–11am106 flights83.5%
- 11am–2pm78 flights67.9%
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm46 flights50.0%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 50.0% on time, against 83.5% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 300 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on GRR to ORD through the year
May is the best month on the calendar at 92.0% 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 80 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.5%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 17,000 reported delay minutes.
- 32%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%Extreme weather
- 15%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 21% 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 3.4 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 16,626 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 83.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.38%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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. 10.9% 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.
At 137 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 58.7% on time across 531 flights, 17 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 17 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 532 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 GRR to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.38% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 2.2 hours; 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. 513 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- GRR to ORD, every carrier
- American on ORD to GRR, the return leg
- Republic Airways on GRR to ORD70.9%
- Envoy Air on GRR to ORD69.5%
- United Airlines on GRR to ORD65.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on GRR to ORD64.5%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.