Carrier route record

AAMCI→ORD

American Airlines · Kansas City to Chicago

Flights: 342
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 8%
Carriers: 6

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on MCI to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 2.3 hours behind schedule. That rests on 342 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 570 at 81.8% on time.

Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 81.8% on time across 570 flights.

On time

73.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 332 completed flights

Avg delay

135 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.92%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

74.7%

Every carrier on MCI to ORD, 4,148 flights

These figures cover 342 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.0% 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

American against every carrier on MCI to ORD

American flew 342 of the 4,148 flights on MCI to ORD, about 8% of it. Its 73.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 81.8% to PSA at 51.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 81.8% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 69.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 943 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on MCI to ORD
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airways	570	81.8%	118 min	1.58%	B
United Airlines	1,434	76.5%	82 min	2.02%	B
Envoy Air	819	73.8%	74 min	3.66%	C−
American Airlines (this page)thin sample	342	73.5%	135 min	2.92%	C
SkyWest Airlines	943	69.5%	112 min	3.71%	C−
PSA Airlinesthin sample	40	51.4%	122 min	7.50%	F−

SkyWest Airlines cancels 3.7% 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.

Departure window

When American runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 44 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am246 flights84.9%
8am–11am9 flights—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm13 flights—
5pm–8pm74 flights41.1%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 35% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 41.1% on time, against 84.9% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 246 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on MCI to ORD through the year

Jul–Sep 2025166 flights67.7%
Oct–Dec 202581 flights88.8%
Jan–Mar 202651 flights82.0%
Apr–Jun 202644 flights56.8%

Scale runs 50% to 95%. 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 73.5% on time across 342 flights.

American on MCI to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 88.8% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 56.8%, a swing of 32 points on roughly 86 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 61.2%. 21 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

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 12,000 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
41%
Late-arriving aircraft
33%
National Airspace System
16%
Extreme weather
9%

The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 4,924 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 11,884 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 84.9% on time here.

Cancellations run at 2.92%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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 costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.0% 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 403 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 58.8% on time across 339 flights, 15 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 15 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 342 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 American on MCI to ORD

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.92% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 2.3 hours; 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. 332 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

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.

Key figures