Route reliability record
JAC→ORD
Jackson to Chicago
- Flights
- 823
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,162 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 823 JAC to ORD flights, of which United Airlines flew 422 at 76.7% on time.
Best time to fly JAC to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 78.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.9%, against 70.2% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 71 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 796 completed flights
Avg delay
116 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.07%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
76.7% on time across 422 flights
These figures cover 823 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.9% 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 JAC to ORD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 76.7% of the time; American Airlines manages 63.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 401 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 422 | 76.7% | 106 min | 2.61% | B |
| American Airlines | 401 | 63.5% | 123 min | 1.50% | D |
The spread between United and American is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Jackson 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. JAC → ORDJackson to Chicago | United Airlines | 74.7% | 76.7% | 2.61% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. JAC → ORDJackson to Chicago | American Airlines | 62.5% | 63.5% | 1.50% | 11am–2pm, 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 23 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am104 flights78.6%
- 8am–11am44 flights76.7%
- 11am–2pm537 flights71.8%
- 2pm–5pm138 flights56.0%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 78.6% of the time, against 56.0% for the afternoon window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 537 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JAC 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 JAC to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 78.6% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 56.0%, a wide gap of 22.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am78.6%
- 8–11am76.7%
- 11am–2pm71.8%
- 2–5pm56.0%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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.
August is the worst month at 60.8% on time, 27 points below May, the best at 88.1%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 63.1%, a spread of 19 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 27,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 11% 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 1.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 27,437 reported delay minutes.
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 27,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one.
Cancellations sit at 2.07% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.22%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
14.9% 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 1,162 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 runs 67.9% on time across 822 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 823 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ORD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 823 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 70.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 796 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JAC to ORD questions
How often is JAC to ORD delayed?
Roughly 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 29.8% of the 823 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on JAC to ORD?
United Airlines leads at 76.7% on time across 422 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 63.5%, a gap of 13 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 JAC to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 78.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 56.0%, 23 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 August delays on JAC to ORD?
August is the weakest month at 60.8% on time, compared with 88.1% in May. Across the year that is 27 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 JAC — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- United Airlines on JAC to ORD76.7%
- American Airlines on JAC to ORD63.5%
- JAC to DEN, a related route80.1%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- JAC to SLC, a related route86.6%
- United Airlines on-time record76.7%
- American Airlines on-time record63.5%
- Flying to ski country: which routes into the mountains run on time
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. JAC to ORD and ORD to JAC 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.