Route reliability record
LSE→ORD
La Crosse to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,049
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 215 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 1,049 LSE to ORD flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly LSE to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.0%, against 81.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
81.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,000 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.48%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Envoy
81.5% on time across 1,049 flights
These figures cover 1,049 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% 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
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 | 1,049 | 81.5% | 82 min | 4.48% | 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.
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 35 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–8am360 flights91.9%
- 8am–11am148 flights85.3%
- 11am–2pm204 flights76.9%
- 2pm–5pm48 flights56.5%
- 5pm–8pm272 flights74.0%
- 8pm–5am17 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.9% of the time, against 56.5% for the afternoon window. That is 35 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.
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.
July 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 87.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 75.7%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 15,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%National Airspace System
- 14%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
48% 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 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 15,165 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 91.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.48%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.1% 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 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 75.6% on time across 1,049 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. 1,049 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 4.48% 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. 1,000 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LSE to ORD questions
How often is LSE to ORD delayed?
Roughly 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 18.5% of the 1,049 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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?
81.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, 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 91.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 56.5%, 35 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 July delays on LSE to ORD?
July 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 route67.3%
- BOS to ORD, a related route72.7%
- DCA to ORD, a related route74.3%
- Envoy Air on-time record81.5%
- 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.
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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.