Carrier route record
YXORD→CLT
Republic Airways · Chicago to Charlotte
- Flights
- 377
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 9%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on ORD to CLT lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 377 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 2,999 at 74.6% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on ORD to CLT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 369 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.12%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.5%
Every carrier on ORD to CLT, 4,306 flights
These figures cover 377 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 CLT
Republic flew 377 of the 4,306 flights on ORD to CLT, about 9% of it. Its 79.7% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 100.0% to SkyWest at 53.6%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 377 | 79.7% | 78 min | 2.12% | B |
| American Airlines | 2,999 | 74.6% | 85 min | 2.43% | C |
| United Airlines | 612 | 70.6% | 76 min | 0.98% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 157 | 67.1% | 121 min | 3.18% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 160 | 53.6% | 52 min | 4.38% | F− |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 74.6%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Departure window
When Republic runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 26 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am245 flights80.4%
- 8am–11am41 flights92.7%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm32 flights80.6%
- 5pm–8pm59 flights66.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 92.7% of the time, against 66.7% for the evening window. That is 26 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 245 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on ORD to CLT through the year
December is the weak month at 68.9% on time, against 90.2% in June. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 61 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 88.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 71.2%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 5,833 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
41% 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 5,833 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 5,833 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 92.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.12% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.8% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 599 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.6% on time across 372 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. 377 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 CLT
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 377 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 79.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 369 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to CLT, every carrier
- Republic on CLT to ORD, the return leg
- American Airlines on ORD to CLT74.6%
- United Airlines on ORD to CLT70.6%
- Frontier Airlines on ORD to CLT67.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to CLT53.6%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.