Carrier route record
MQLEX→ORD
Envoy Air · Lexington to Chicago
- Flights
- 296
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 17%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Envoy Air.
Envoy on LEX to ORD lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 296 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Envoy on LEX 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
76.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 292 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.35%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
71.8%
Every carrier on LEX to ORD, 1,734 flights
These figures cover 296 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% 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
Envoy against every carrier on LEX to ORD
Envoy flew 296 of the 1,734 flights on LEX to ORD, about 17% of it. Its 76.7% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 82.6% to SkyWest at 70.6%. One 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 82.6% | 82 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Envoy Air (this page)thin sample | 296 | 76.7% | 89 min | 1.35% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,415 | 70.6% | 95 min | 3.32% | C− |
Departure window
When Envoy runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 23 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–8am65 flights86.2%
- 8am–11am84 flights80.7%
- 11am–2pm44 flights84.1%
- 2pm–5pm7 flights—
- 5pm–8pm96 flights63.4%
- 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: 63.4% on time, against 86.2% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 96 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Envoy on LEX to ORD through the year
- Oct–Dec 202551 flights68.6%
- Jan–Mar 2026183 flights77.1%
- Apr–Jun 202662 flights82.3%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 76.7% on time across 296 flights.
Envoy on LEX to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 82.3% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 68.6%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 99 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 72.7%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Envoy runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 6,069 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.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%National Airspace System
- 10%Carrier
- 1%Security
- 0%Extreme weather
56% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 6,069 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 56 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 6,069 reported delay minutes.
33% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,986 minutes out of 6,069, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.35% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
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. 9.6% 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 323 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.9% on time across 295 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 296 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 Envoy on LEX to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 296 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 76.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 292 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.