Carrier route record
OOORD→CHA
SkyWest Airlines · Chicago to Chattanooga
- Flights
- 510
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 53%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on ORD to CHA sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 510 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so SkyWest on ORD to CHA runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 86 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 481 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.29%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
70.2%
Every carrier on ORD to CHA, 954 flights
These figures cover 510 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.1% 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
SkyWest against every carrier on ORD to CHA
SkyWest flew 510 of the 954 flights on ORD to CHA, most of the route. Its 69.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 70.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 77.3% to Republic at 66.7%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 205 | 77.3% | 78 min | 3.41% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 510 | 69.0% | 78 min | 5.29% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 239 | 66.7% | 83 min | 4.60% | C− |
Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 27 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am64 flights75.0%
- 8am–11am127 flights72.3%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm127 flights68.9%
- 5pm–8pm68 flights48.4%
- 8pm–5am124 flights74.1%
Scale runs 40% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 48.4% on time, against 75.0% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 127 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on ORD to CHA through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025113 flights78.8%
- Oct–Dec 2025154 flights73.8%
- Jan–Mar 2026135 flights54.9%
- Apr–Jun 2026108 flights68.3%
Scale runs 45% 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 69.0% on time across 510 flights.
SkyWest on ORD to CHA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 78.8% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 54.9%, a swing of 24 points on roughly 128 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 75.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.0%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 60% of the 12,000 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.
- 60%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 60%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 6,932 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 11,597 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 5.29%, against 1.81% 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.1% 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 501 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 69.7% on time across 510 flights, within half a point 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. 510 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 SkyWest on ORD to CHA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.29% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 481 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to CHA, every carrier
- SkyWest on CHA to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to CHA77.3%
- Republic Airways on ORD to CHA66.7%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.