Carrier route record

YXMEM→ORD

Republic Airways · Memphis to Chicago

Flights: 468
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 19%
Carriers: 5

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

Republic on MEM to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a B−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 468 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 821 at 77.1% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on MEM to ORD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

75.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 446 completed flights

Avg delay

69 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

4.70%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

76.0%

Every carrier on MEM to ORD, 2,473 flights

These figures cover 468 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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

Republic against every carrier on MEM to ORD

Republic flew 468 of the 2,473 flights on MEM to ORD, about 19% of it. Its 75.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 84.0% to American at 17.6%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.

On-time performance by carrier on MEM to ORD
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlinesthin sample	332	84.0%	98 min	3.61%	B−
Envoy Air	821	77.1%	62 min	3.05%	B−
Republic Airways (this page)	468	75.6%	69 min	4.70%	B−
SkyWest Airlines	835	73.1%	90 min	2.28%	C
American Airlinesthin sample	17	17.6%	121 min	0.00%	F+

Envoy Air cancels 3.0% 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 Republic runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 28 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am176 flights85.1%
8am–11am2 flights—
11am–2pm106 flights73.1%
2pm–5pm35 flights57.1%
5pm–8pm146 flights69.6%
8pm–5am3 flights—

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 85.1% of the time, against 57.1% for the afternoon window. That is 28 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 176 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on MEM to ORD through the year

Jul–Sep 202559 flights62.7%
Oct–Dec 202562 flights79.7%
Jan–Mar 2026177 flights77.8%
Apr–Jun 2026170 flights76.4%

Scale runs 55% to 85%. 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 75.6% on time across 468 flights.

Republic on MEM to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 79.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 62.7%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 117 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, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.7%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Republic runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 7,544 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
45%
National Airspace System
26%
Carrier
22%
Extreme weather
8%

45% 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 7,544 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 7,544 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 85.1% on time here.

Cancellations run at 4.70%, against 1.81% 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 costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.4% 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 491 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 70.7% on time across 465 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 468 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 Republic on MEM to ORD

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.70% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 446 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