Carrier route record

YXORD→BHM

Republic Airways · Chicago to Birmingham

Flights: 255
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 22%
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 BHM lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 255 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Republic's ORD to BHM record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 52 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 250 completed flights

Avg delay

59 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.96%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.5%

Every carrier on ORD to BHM, 1,137 flights

These figures cover 255 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 ORD to BHM

Republic flew 255 of the 1,137 flights on ORD to BHM, about 22% of it. Its 82.8% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 100.0% to SkyWest at 61.9%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on ORD to BHM
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
PSA Airlinesthin sample	2	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
Republic Airways (this page)thin sample	255	82.8%	59 min	1.96%	B
Envoy Air	773	79.3%	64 min	1.68%	B
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	107	61.9%	70 min	1.87%	D

Departure window

When Republic runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 255 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am158 flights83.8%
11am–2pm19 flights—
2pm–5pm57 flights89.5%
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am21 flights—

Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 89.5% on time, ahead of 8am–11am at 83.8%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 158 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on ORD to BHM through the year

Jul–Sep 2025124 flights91.9%
Oct–Dec 202545 flights69.8%
Jan–Mar 202685 flights75.9%
Apr–Jun 20261 flights—

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 82.8% on time across 255 flights.

Republic on ORD to BHM did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 91.9% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 69.8%, a swing of 22 points on roughly 85 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 91.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.7%. 16 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 48% of the 2,534 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
48%
National Airspace System
26%
Carrier
18%
Extreme weather
9%

48% 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 2,534 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 2,534 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.96% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

5.6% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 584 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 84.6% on time across 256 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. 255 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 BHM

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 255 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 82.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 250 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