Carrier route record
OOMKE→ORD
SkyWest Airlines · Milwaukee to Chicago
- Flights
- 4,932
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 95%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on MKE to ORD carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 4,932 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so SkyWest on MKE to ORD runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 103 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,727 completed flights
Avg delay
94 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.12%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
67.4%
Every carrier on MKE to ORD, 5,202 flights
These figures cover 4,932 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.2% 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
SkyWest against every carrier on MKE to ORD
SkyWest flew 4,932 of the 5,202 flights on MKE to ORD, most of the route. Its 67.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 67.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 73.1% to PSA at 54.5%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 113 | 73.1% | 86 min | 7.96% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 130 | 69.7% | 74 min | 6.15% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 4,932 | 67.3% | 94 min | 4.12% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 26 | 54.5% | 176 min | 15.38% | F− |
Flight by flight
SkyWest flight numbers on MKE to ORD
Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 32 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–8am1,600 flights79.3%
- 8am–11am1,243 flights68.4%
- 11am–2pm771 flights62.9%
- 2pm–5pm645 flights59.8%
- 5pm–8pm644 flights47.3%
- 8pm–5am29 flights—
Scale runs 40% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 47.3% on time, against 79.3% 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 1,600 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on MKE to ORD through the year
July is the worst month at 57.6% on time, 18 points below February, the best at 75.3%. 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 511 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 72.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.4%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 47% of the 146,000 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.
- 47%Carrier
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, 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 69,000 of the 146,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 145,658 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.12%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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. 15.2% 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 67 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 63.7% on time across 4,933 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.
The sample behind these figures is 4,932 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking SkyWest on MKE to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.12% 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. 4,727 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MKE to ORD, every carrier
- SkyWest on ORD to MKE, the return leg
- Republic Airways on MKE to ORD73.1%
- Envoy Air on MKE to ORD69.7%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.