Route reliability record
ORD→CHS
Chicago to Charleston
- Flights
- 2,154
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 760 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,154 ORD to CHS flights, of which Republic Airways flew 430 at 81.3% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to CHS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.9%, against 75.0% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 81.3% on time across 430 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,114 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.81%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
81.3% on time across 430 flights
These figures cover 2,154 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% 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 CHS
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 81.3% of the time; Envoy Air manages 73.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 496 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airways | 430 | 81.3% | 57 min | 1.86% | B |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 353 | 74.1% | 78 min | 1.70% | C |
| United Airlines | 789 | 73.7% | 69 min | 1.39% | C |
| Envoy Air | 496 | 73.6% | 53 min | 2.42% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 85 | 67.5% | 71 min | 2.35% | C |
Republic leads Envoy by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Charleston
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → CHSChicago to Charleston | Republic Airways | 79.8% | 81.3% | 1.86% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. ORD → CHSChicago to Charleston | United Airlines | 72.7% | 73.7% | 1.39% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → CHSChicago to Charleston | Envoy Air | 71.8% | 73.6% | 2.42% | 11am–2pm, 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 27 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am219 flights89.0%
- 8am–11am841 flights79.0%
- 11am–2pm66 flights82.8%
- 2pm–5pm487 flights71.6%
- 5pm–8pm356 flights62.4%
- 8pm–5am185 flights69.9%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.4% on time, against 89.0% 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 841 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to CHS 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 CHS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 62.4%, a wide gap of 26.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.0%
- 8–11am79.0%
- 11am–2pm82.8%
- 2–5pm71.6%
- 5–8pm62.4%
- 8pm–5am69.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
August is the worst month at 64.9% on time, 19 points below September, the best at 84.1%. 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 210 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.4%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 34,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 34,336 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.81% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.05%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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 760 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.
The return leg runs 76.7% on time across 2,153 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.
The sample behind these figures is 2,154 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 CHS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 84.1% on time and August 64.9%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,114 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to CHS questions
How often is ORD to CHS 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 25.0% of the 2,154 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to CHS?
Republic Airways leads at 81.3% on time across 430 flights. Envoy Air is at the other end on 73.6%, a gap of 8 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 CHS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 62.4%, 27 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 August delays on ORD to CHS?
August is the weakest month at 64.9% on time, compared with 84.1% in September. Across the year that is 19 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
- CHS to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Charleston International (CHS) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on ORD to CHS81.3%
- American Airlines on ORD to CHS74.1%
- United Airlines on ORD to CHS73.7%
- Envoy Air on ORD to CHS73.6%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ATL to CHS, a related route82.3%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- PSA Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record81.3%
- American Airlines on-time record74.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ORD to CHS and CHS 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.