Carrier route record
OOGRR→ORD
SkyWest Airlines · Grand Rapids to Chicago
- Flights
- 879
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 22%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on GRR to ORD carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 879 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 480 at 74.0% on time.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 74.0% on time across 480 flights.
Key figures
On time
70.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 845 completed flights
Avg delay
111 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.75%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
69.1%
Every carrier on GRR to ORD, 4,079 flights
These figures cover 879 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
SkyWest against every carrier on GRR to ORD
SkyWest flew 879 of the 4,079 flights on GRR to ORD, about 22% of it. Its 70.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 69.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 74.0% 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. American Airlines arrives on time 74.0% of the time; United Airlines manages 63.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,085 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 480 | 74.0% | 138 min | 3.75% | C− |
| Republic Airways | 666 | 72.5% | 84 min | 3.45% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 879 | 70.4% | 111 min | 3.75% | C− |
| Envoy Air | 967 | 70.2% | 72 min | 3.72% | C− |
| United Airlines | 1,085 | 63.0% | 78 min | 1.11% | D |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 0.0% | 690 min | 0.00% | 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.
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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 42 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am194 flights86.9%
- 8am–11am159 flights80.3%
- 11am–2pm187 flights72.4%
- 2pm–5pm183 flights58.3%
- 5pm–8pm114 flights51.8%
- 8pm–5am42 flights44.7%
Scale runs 35% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 44.7% on time, against 86.9% 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 194 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on GRR to ORD through the year
December is the weak month at 43.1% on time, against 83.9% in June. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 154 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 74.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.4%, a spread of 10 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on GRR to ORD runs when it is late
SkyWest on GRR to ORD often beats the schedule: 265 of 845 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 250 late arrivals split 69 under half an hour, 56 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 125 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early265 flights31.4%
- Within 15 min330 flights39.1%
- 15–29 min late69 flights8.2%
- 30–59 min late56 flights6.6%
- 1–2 hours late58 flights6.9%
- 2+ hours late67 flights7.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 845 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 201 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 23 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 72 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at ORD.
The worst days
Worst days for SkyWest on GRR to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 27 July 2026, 24 hours 43 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 27 July 2026 | 24 hours 43 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 4 May 2026 | 21 hours 41 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 31 January 2026 | 18 hours 47 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 August 2026 | 15 hours 10 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 December 2025 | 8 hours 52 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest 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 28,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 27,625 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.75%, 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 costs
14.8% 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 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 71.8% on time across 881 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 879 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 GRR to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.75% 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. 845 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- GRR to ORD, every carrier
- SkyWest on ORD to GRR, the return leg
- American Airlines on GRR to ORD74.0%
- Republic Airways on GRR to ORD72.5%
- Envoy Air on GRR to ORD70.2%
- United Airlines on GRR to ORD63.0%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.