Carrier route record

YXMSY→ORD

Republic Airways · New Orleans to Chicago

Flights: 336
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 14%
Carriers: 7

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

Republic on MSY to ORD lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 336 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 842 at 82.3% on time.

United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 82.3% on time across 842 flights.

On time

78.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 322 completed flights

Avg delay

73 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.68%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.1%

Every carrier on MSY to ORD, 2,400 flights

These figures cover 336 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Carrier by carrier

Republic against every carrier on MSY to ORD

Republic flew 336 of the 2,400 flights on MSY to ORD, about 14% of it. Its 78.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 82.3% to Frontier at 63.6%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 82.3% of the time; American Airlines manages 70.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 400 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on MSY to ORD
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	842	82.3%	79 min	1.19%	B
Envoy Air	465	82.1%	68 min	1.72%	B
Republic Airways (this page)thin sample	336	78.0%	73 min	2.68%	B
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	131	72.9%	61 min	1.53%	C
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	215	70.5%	67 min	6.51%	C−
American Airlines	400	70.3%	137 min	2.25%	C
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	11	63.6%	67 min	0.00%	D+

The spread between United and American is 12 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 12 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

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 22 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am78 flights88.0%
8am–11am18 flights—
11am–2pm79 flights77.3%
2pm–5pm73 flights65.7%
5pm–8pm88 flights78.6%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.0% of the time, against 65.7% for the afternoon window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 88 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on MSY to ORD through the year

Jul–Sep 202561 flights87.9%
Oct–Dec 202593 flights69.2%
Jan–Mar 202663 flights76.7%
Apr–Jun 2026119 flights80.5%

Scale runs 60% 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 78.0% on time across 336 flights.

Republic on MSY to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 87.9% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 69.2%, a swing of 19 points on roughly 84 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 87.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.0%. 18 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 51% of the 5,170 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
51%
National Airspace System
37%
Carrier
8%
Extreme weather
4%

51% 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 5,170 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 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 5,170 reported delay minutes.

37% 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 1,918 minutes out of 5,170, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations run at 2.68%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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 costs

7.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 837 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg runs 78.2% on time across 335 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 336 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 MSY to ORD

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 336 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 78.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 322 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