Route reliability record
ORD→AZO
Chicago to Kalamazoo
- Flights
- 941
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 122 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 941 ORD to AZO flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly ORD to AZO: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.8%, against 73.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
73.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 891 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.78%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
76.6% on time across 716 flights
These figures cover 941 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% 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 AZO
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 716 | 76.6% | 66 min | 4.33% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 225 | 64.9% | 89 min | 6.22% | D− |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Kalamazoo
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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MDW → GRRChicago to Grand Rapids | Southwest Airlines | 74.0% | 74.6% | 0.86% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. ORD → AZOChicago to Kalamazoo | Envoy Air | 73.3% | 76.6% | 4.33% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 3. ORD → GRRChicago to Grand Rapids | Envoy Air | 72.2% | 75.2% | 3.93% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. ORD → GRRChicago to Grand Rapids | Republic Airways | 69.2% | 71.7% | 3.46% | 11am–2pm, Thu | — |
| 5. ORD → GRRChicago to Grand Rapids | SkyWest Airlines | 68.9% | 71.8% | 4.09% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am221 flights85.1%
- 11am–2pm168 flights71.1%
- 2pm–5pm192 flights77.6%
- 5pm–8pm17 flights—
- 8pm–5am343 flights65.7%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 85.1% of the time, against 65.7% for the overnight window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 343 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to AZO 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 AZO, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 85.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 65.7%, a wide gap of 19.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am85.1%
- 11am–2pm71.1%
- 2–5pm77.6%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am65.7%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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.
June is the worst month at 55.9% on time, 31 points below September, the best at 87.1%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. March was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.4%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%Extreme weather
- 18%National Airspace System
- 14%Carrier
Extreme weather accounts for 19% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 17,082 reported delay minutes.
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations run at 4.78%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
9.9% 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 122 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.0% on time across 941 flights, 4 points above 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 941 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in AZO after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.78% 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. 891 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to AZO questions
How often is ORD to AZO 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 26.2% of the 941 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is ORD to AZO compared with the rest of the country?
73.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ORD to AZO?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 85.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.7%, 19 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 June delays on ORD to AZO?
June is the weakest month at 55.9% on time, compared with 87.1% in September. Across the year that is 31 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
- AZO to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on ORD to AZO76.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to AZO64.9%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- DTW to AZO, a related route75.2%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record76.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record64.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORD to AZO and AZO 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.