Route reliability record
MSP→ORD
Minneapolis to Chicago
- Flights
- 6,395
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 334 mi
- Carriers
- 8
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 6,395 MSP to ORD flights, of which Republic Airways flew 526 at 75.0% on time.
Best time to fly MSP to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 74.3%, against 70.0% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 75.0% on time across 526 flights.
Key figures
On time
70.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,197 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.85%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
75.0% on time across 526 flights
These figures cover 6,395 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to ORD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 75.0% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 66.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 791 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 133 | 76.5% | 100 min | 0.75% | B+ |
| Republic Airways | 526 | 75.0% | 97 min | 7.98% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 1,065 | 74.9% | 70 min | 2.91% | C |
| United Airlines | 2,399 | 69.7% | 87 min | 1.71% | C |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,425 | 67.6% | 72 min | 2.53% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 791 | 66.0% | 95 min | 3.67% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 43 | 54.8% | 79 min | 2.33% | F |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 13 | 41.7% | 85 min | 7.69% | F− |
Republic Airways cancels 8.0% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Minneapolis to Chicago
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MSP → MDWMinneapolis to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 77.5% | 78.8% | 1.70% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. MSP → MDWMinneapolis to Chicago | SkyWest Airlines | 75.5% | 76.7% | 1.54% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 3. MSP → ORDMinneapolis to Chicago | Envoy Air | 72.7% | 74.9% | 2.91% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. MSP → ORDMinneapolis to Chicago | Republic Airways | 69.0% | 75.0% | 7.98% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 5. MSP → ORDMinneapolis to Chicago | United Airlines | 68.5% | 69.7% | 1.71% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 758 08:00 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 26 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,403 flights83.7%
- 8am–11am1,289 flights78.7%
- 11am–2pm1,112 flights69.2%
- 2pm–5pm1,019 flights58.5%
- 5pm–8pm1,302 flights57.5%
- 8pm–5am270 flights63.5%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.5% on time, against 83.7% 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 1,403 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP 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 MSP to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 83.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 57.5%, a wide gap of 26.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am83.7%
- 8–11am78.7%
- 11am–2pm69.2%
- 2–5pm58.5%
- 5–8pm57.5%
- 8pm–5am63.5%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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.
December is the weak month at 50.1% on time, against 80.4% in May. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. August was the busiest month here, with 593 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 74.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.8%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 43% of the 153,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%National Airspace System
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
43% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 65,000 minutes out of 153,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 153,313 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.85%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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
12.2% 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 334 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 runs 69.9% on time across 6,395 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 6,395 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.
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 2.85% 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. 6,197 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to ORD questions
How often is MSP to ORD delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 30.0% of the 6,395 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to ORD?
Republic Airways leads at 75.0% on time across 526 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 66.0%, a gap of 9 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 57.5%, 26 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 December delays on MSP to ORD?
December is the weakest month at 50.1% on time, compared with 80.4% in May. Across the year that is 30 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 MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- American Airlines on MSP to ORD76.5%
- Republic Airways on MSP to ORD75.0%
- Envoy Air on MSP to ORD74.9%
- United Airlines on MSP to ORD69.7%
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to ORD67.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on MSP to ORD66.0%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- MSP to ATL, a related route81.7%
- American Airlines on-time record76.5%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record74.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. MSP to ORD and ORD to MSP 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.