Route reliability record
LSE→ORD
La Crosse to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,061
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 215 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,061 LSE to ORD flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Best time to fly LSE to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 86.9%, against 81.2% 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
81.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,008 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.81%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
81.2% on time across 1,061 flights
These figures cover 1,061 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LSE to ORD
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 1,061 | 81.2% | 87 min | 4.81% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on LSE 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am360 flights90.8%
- 8am–11am147 flights85.2%
- 11am–2pm205 flights74.6%
- 2pm–5pm18 flights—
- 5pm–8pm314 flights73.0%
- 8pm–5am17 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.8% of the time, against 73.0% for the evening window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 360 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LSE 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 LSE to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 73.0%, a wide gap of 17.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.8%
- 8–11am85.2%
- 11am–2pm74.6%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm73.0%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% 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.
August is the worst month at 70.8% on time, 19 points below May, the best at 90.2%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 74.1%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%National Airspace System
- 16%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 16,528 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 90.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.81%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
9.2% 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 215 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 75.1% on time across 1,061 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,061 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: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.81% 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. 1,008 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LSE to ORD questions
How often is LSE to ORD delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.8% of the 1,061 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is LSE to ORD compared with the rest of the country?
81.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LSE to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.0%, 18 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 LSE to ORD?
August is the weakest month at 70.8% on time, compared with 90.2% in May. 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 LSE — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- LAX to ORD, a related route76.4%
- Envoy Air on-time record81.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LSE to ORD and ORD to LSE are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed LSE to ORD’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.