Route reliability record
ORD→ALB
Chicago to Albany
- Flights
- 2,374
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 723 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route 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 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,374 ORD to ALB flights, of which Envoy Air flew 624 at 80.1% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to ALB: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.4% of the time and Thursday flights 79.7%, against 75.2% for the route overall.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 80.1% on time across 624 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,310 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
80.1% on time across 624 flights
These figures cover 2,374 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.8% 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 ORD to ALB
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 80.1% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 72.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 366 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 624 | 80.1% | 54 min | 2.56% | B |
| United Airlines | 788 | 73.7% | 74 min | 1.02% | C |
| Republic Airways | 596 | 73.4% | 74 min | 4.19% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 366 | 72.6% | 78 min | 3.83% | C− |
Republic Airways cancels 4.2% 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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Albany
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. 1 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → ALBChicago to Albany | Envoy Air | 78.0% | 80.1% | 2.56% | 2pm–5pm, Wed | — |
| 2. ORD → ALBChicago to Albany | United Airlines | 72.9% | 73.7% | 1.02% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → ALBChicago to Albany | Republic Airways | 70.3% | 73.4% | 4.19% | 2pm–5pm, Thu | — |
| 4. MDW → ALBChicago to Albany | Southwest Airlines | 70.1% | 70.8% | 0.95% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 5. ORD → ALBChicago to Albany | SkyWest Airlines | 69.8% | 72.6% | 3.83% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
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 24 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am226 flights89.4%
- 8am–11am385 flights81.5%
- 11am–2pm430 flights76.1%
- 2pm–5pm546 flights75.2%
- 5pm–8pm383 flights65.7%
- 8pm–5am404 flights68.6%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.4% of the time, against 65.7% for the evening window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 546 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to ALB 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 ORD to ALB, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.7%, a wide gap of 23.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.4%
- 8–11am81.5%
- 11am–2pm76.1%
- 2–5pm75.2%
- 5–8pm65.7%
- 8pm–5am68.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 63.6% on time, against 84.3% 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. May was the busiest month here, with 260 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.4%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 40,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 40,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 40,326 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 89.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.65%, against 1.89% 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 actually costs
9.8% 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.
The 723 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.
The return leg runs 77.4% on time across 2,373 flights, within 2 points 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 2,374 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 ALB after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 84.3% on time and December 63.6%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,310 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to ALB questions
How often is ORD to ALB delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.8% of the 2,374 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to ALB?
Envoy Air leads at 80.1% on time across 624 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 72.6%, a gap of 8 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 ORD to ALB?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.7%, 24 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 ORD to ALB?
December is the weakest month at 63.6% on time, compared with 84.3% in May. Across the year that is 21 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
- ALB to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on ORD to ALB80.1%
- United Airlines on ORD to ALB73.7%
- Republic Airways on ORD to ALB73.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to ALB72.6%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- BWI to ALB, a related route80.4%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record80.1%
- United Airlines on-time record73.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record73.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORD to ALB and ALB to ORD 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.