Route reliability record
ICT→ORD
Wichita to Chicago
- Flights
- 2,191
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 588 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 2,191 ICT to ORD flights, of which Envoy Air flew 551 at 76.5% on time.
Best time to fly ICT to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.7%, against 74.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,110 completed flights
Avg delay
92 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.24%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
76.5% on time across 551 flights
These figures cover 2,191 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.5% 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 ICT to ORD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 76.5% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 70.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,251 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 313 | 86.1% | 88 min | 0.96% | A+ |
| Envoy Air | 551 | 76.5% | 70 min | 3.27% | B− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 54 | 73.5% | 133 min | 9.26% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,251 | 70.2% | 100 min | 3.44% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 21 | 68.4% | 59 min | 9.52% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 31 min | 0.00% | F+ |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 3.4% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on ICT 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 Wichita to Chicago
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ICT → ORDWichita to Chicago | Envoy Air | 74.0% | 76.5% | 3.27% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. ICT → ORDWichita to Chicago | SkyWest Airlines | 67.8% | 70.2% | 3.44% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 21 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am701 flights82.1%
- 8am–11am28 flights—
- 11am–2pm742 flights72.3%
- 2pm–5pm305 flights75.4%
- 5pm–8pm415 flights61.4%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.4% on time, against 82.1% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 742 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ICT 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 ICT to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 82.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 61.4%, a wide gap of 20.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am82.1%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm72.3%
- 2–5pm75.4%
- 5–8pm61.4%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
December is the weak month at 66.3% on time, against 85.2% in February. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 260 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 64.8%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 50,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 14% 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 2.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 50,089 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 17,000 of the 50,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.24%, against 1.89% 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 actually costs
11.5% 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.
The 588 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 66.7% on time across 2,187 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,191 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 3.24% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 2,110 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ICT to ORD questions
How often is ICT to ORD delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 25.8% of the 2,191 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ICT to ORD?
Envoy Air leads at 76.5% on time across 551 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 70.2%, a gap of 6 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ICT to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 82.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.4%, 21 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 December delays on ICT to ORD?
December is the weakest month at 66.3% on time, compared with 85.2% in February. Across the year that is 19 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 ICT — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- United Airlines on ICT to ORD86.1%
- Envoy Air on ICT to ORD76.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on ICT to ORD70.2%
- ICT to DFW, a related route79.9%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- ICT to DEN, a related route78.7%
- United Airlines on-time record86.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record76.5%
- PSA Airlines on-time record73.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ICT to ORD and ORD to ICT 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.