Carrier route record
AAOMA→ORD
American Airlines · Omaha to Chicago
- Flights
- 243
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 8%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on OMA to ORD lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 243 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 825 at 75.6% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate American on OMA to ORD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 238 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
74.2%
Every carrier on OMA to ORD, 3,108 flights
These figures cover 243 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on OMA to ORD
American flew 243 of the 3,108 flights on OMA to ORD, about 8% of it. Its 80.3% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 80.3% to SkyWest at 71.2%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The three 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page)thin sample | 243 | 80.3% | 82 min | 1.65% | B |
| Envoy Air | 825 | 75.6% | 75 min | 3.88% | B− |
| United Airlines | 1,381 | 73.6% | 95 min | 2.17% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 199 | 71.9% | 84 min | 3.52% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 8 | 71.4% | 55 min | 12.50% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 452 | 71.2% | 93 min | 4.42% | C− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 4.4% 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.
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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 40 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am207 flights85.6%
- 8am–11am3 flights—
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm31 flights45.2%
- 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: 45.2% on time, against 85.6% 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 207 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on OMA to ORD through the year
- Jul–Sep 202542 flights73.2%
- Oct–Dec 202599 flights77.6%
- Apr–Jun 202644 flights86.0%
- Jul–Sep 202658 flights85.7%
Scale runs 65% to 90%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 80.3% on time across 243 flights.
American on OMA to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 86.0% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 73.2%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 61 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 87.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.7%, a spread of 21 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on OMA to ORD runs when it is late
American on OMA to ORD often beats the schedule: 68 of 238 completed flights, 29%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 47 late arrivals split 12 under half an hour, 20 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 15 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early68 flights28.6%
- Within 15 min123 flights51.7%
- 15–29 min late12 flights5.0%
- 30–59 min late20 flights8.4%
- 1–2 hours late9 flights3.8%
- 2+ hours late6 flights2.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 238 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
6 of 36 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. In the other direction, 17 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at ORD.
The worst days
Worst days for American on OMA to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 November 2025, 17 hours 34 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across November, October, July, June and September, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 2 November 2025 | 17 hours 34 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 October 2025 | 4 hours 54 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 24 July 2026 | 3 hours 19 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 June 2026 | 2 hours 56 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 September 2025 | 2 hours 55 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 3,872 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 3,872 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 3,872 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 85.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.65% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.41%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 416 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 53.4% on time across 242 flights, 27 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 27 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 243 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 OMA to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 243 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 80.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 238 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- OMA to ORD, every carrier
- American on ORD to OMA, the return leg
- Envoy Air on OMA to ORD75.6%
- United Airlines on OMA to ORD73.6%
- Republic Airways on OMA to ORD71.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on OMA to ORD71.2%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Eppley Airfield (OMA) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.