Route reliability record
ORD→CAK
Chicago to Akron
- Flights
- 2,089
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 344 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a D− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,089 ORD to CAK flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,479 at 64.9% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to CAK: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 76.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 67.3%, against 63.6% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 14 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 137 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
63.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,971 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.36%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
64.9% on time across 1,479 flights
These figures cover 2,089 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.7% 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 CAK
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 64.9% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 54.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 380 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 230 | 69.4% | 70 min | 3.48% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,479 | 64.9% | 88 min | 4.87% | D− |
| PSA Airlines | 380 | 54.8% | 128 min | 8.42% | F− |
PSA Airlines cancels 8.4% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD to CAK
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Akron
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. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MDW → CLEChicago to Cleveland | Southwest Airlines | 78.5% | 79.6% | 1.35% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORD → CLEChicago to Cleveland | Republic Airways | 72.1% | 76.2% | 5.32% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → CLEChicago to Cleveland | United Airlines | 70.9% | 71.8% | 1.28% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2389 10:29 |
| 4. ORD → CLEChicago to Cleveland | Envoy Air | 70.1% | 73.1% | 4.10% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 5. ORD → CLEChicago to Cleveland | SkyWest Airlines | 65.0% | 67.3% | 3.40% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 25 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am63 flights66.1%
- 8am–11am361 flights76.7%
- 11am–2pm51 flights52.2%
- 2pm–5pm606 flights65.7%
- 5pm–8pm683 flights54.0%
- 8pm–5am325 flights66.2%
Scale runs 45% to 80%.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 52.2% on time against 76.7% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 683 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to CAK 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 CAK, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 76.7% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 52.2%, a wide gap of 24.5 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am66.1%
- 8–11am76.7%
- 11am–2pm52.2%
- 2–5pm65.7%
- 5–8pm54.0%
- 8pm–5am66.2%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 42 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 38.6% on time, against 80.2% in September. 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 236 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 67.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 60.0%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 68,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 68,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 68,142 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 76.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.36%, 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
16.7% 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 344 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 72.5% on time across 2,088 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,089 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 CAK after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.36% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 1,971 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to CAK questions
How often is ORD to CAK delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 36.4% of the 2,089 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to CAK?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 64.9% on time across 1,479 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 54.8%, a gap of 10 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 CAK?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 76.7% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 52.2%, 25 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 CAK?
December is the weakest month at 38.6% on time, compared with 80.2% in September. Across the year that is 42 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
- CAK to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on ORD to CAK69.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to CAK64.9%
- PSA Airlines on ORD to CAK54.8%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- CLT to CAK, a related route71.1%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record69.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record64.9%
- PSA Airlines on-time record54.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. ORD to CAK and CAK to ORD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed ORD to CAK’s on-time badge on your site
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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.