Carrier route record

YXORD→ALB

Republic Airways · Chicago to Albany

Flights: 587
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 25%
Carriers: 4

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

Republic on ORD to ALB sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 587 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 756 at 79.1% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on ORD to ALB from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

74.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 563 completed flights

Avg delay

71 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

4.09%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

75.7%

Every carrier on ORD to ALB, 2,304 flights

These figures cover 587 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.5% 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

Republic against every carrier on ORD to ALB

Republic flew 587 of the 2,304 flights on ORD to ALB, about 25% of it. Its 74.2% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 79.1% to United at 73.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 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.

On-time performance by carrier on ORD to ALB
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Air	756	79.1%	54 min	2.38%	B
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	205	74.4%	84 min	2.44%	C
Republic Airways (this page)	587	74.2%	71 min	4.09%	C−
United Airlines	756	73.7%	67 min	1.32%	C

No carrier stands out. Envoy tops the table at 79.1%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.

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 14 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am9 flights—
8am–11am108 flights81.0%
11am–2pm111 flights72.2%
2pm–5pm195 flights76.8%
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am164 flights66.9%

Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 81.0% of the time, against 66.9% for the overnight window. That is 14 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 195 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on ORD to ALB through the year

Jul–Sep 202548 flights75.0%
Oct–Dec 2025230 flights72.6%
Jan–Mar 2026231 flights73.9%
Apr–Jun 202678 flights79.7%

Scale runs 65% to 85%. 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 74.2% on time across 587 flights.

Quarter by quarter Republic on ORD to ALB held fairly steady: 75.0% in Jul–Sep 2025, 72.6% in Oct–Dec 2025, 73.9% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 79.7% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 7 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 81.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.1%. 14 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 10,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
51%
National Airspace System
25%
Carrier
14%
Extreme weather
10%

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 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 10,225 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 81.0% on time here.

Cancellations run at 4.09%, 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. 11.5% 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.

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. 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 71.8% on time across 587 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 587 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 ORD to ALB

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.09% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 563 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